authors
list | date_download
timestamp[s] | date_modify
null | date_publish
timestamp[s] | description
stringlengths 1
5.93k
⌀ | filename
stringlengths 33
1.45k
| image_url
stringlengths 23
353
| language
stringclasses 21
values | localpath
null | title
stringlengths 2
200
⌀ | title_page
null | title_rss
null | source_domain
stringlengths 6
40
| maintext
stringlengths 68
80.7k
⌀ | url
stringlengths 20
1.44k
| fasttext_language
stringclasses 1
value | date_publish_final
timestamp[s] | path
stringlengths 76
110
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Julia Kollewe"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:24 | null | 2016-08-31T07:18:40 |
Building society says average price of a home rose 0.6% to £206,145, but outlook for housing market remains uncertain
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fuk-house-prices-edge-up-in-august-nationwide-says.json
|
en
| null |
UK house prices edge up in August, Nationwide says
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
House price growth picked up slightly in August, despite the Brexit vote, according to Nationwide building society.
The average price of a home rose 0.6% to £206,145 between July and August, according to the Nationwide house price index (pdf) – one of two major monthly surveys by UK mortgage lenders. This compares with a 0.5% monthly gain in June. The annual rate picked up to 5.6% from 5.2%.
Nationwide said both demand and supply had been weak, adding that the outlook for the housing market remained clouded. Recent figures from the Bank of England showed mortgage approvals fell to an 18-month low in July.
Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, said: “The pick-up in price growth is somewhat at odds with signs that housing market activity has slowed in recent months. New buyer inquiries have softened as a result of the introduction of additional stamp duty on second homes in April and the uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum. The number of mortgages approved for house purchase fell to an 18-month low in July.
“However, the decline in demand appears to have been matched by weakness on the supply side of the market. Surveyors report that instructions to sell have also declined and the stock of properties on the market remains close to 30-year lows. This helps to explain why the pace of house price growth has remained broadly stable.”
He said the outlook for the housing market depended to a large extent on what happens in the job market along with confidence among potential buyers. Business surveys suggest that the manufacturing, services and construction industries all slowed sharply in July, which if sustained is likely to have a negative impact on the labour market and consumer confidence.
The Bank of England’s recent stimulus package, including an interest rate cut to a new record low of 0.25% on 4 August, should provide some support for households and the housing market. However, Gardner noted that the proportion of mortgage balances on variable rates was lower than average at present (45% versus an average of 60% since 2001) and the typical saving from a quarter-point cut in interest rates is about £15 a month.
The Bank’s decision to buy an additional £60bn of UK government bonds will put downward pressure on long-term interest rates, which will, in turn, help to lower the cost of fixed rate mortgages, which have already declined to new all-time lows, he added.
Mortgage rates Photograph: Bank of England
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted that the Nationwide data was “incongruous to all the other noises from the housing market”. For instance, the net balance of surveyors reporting that prices increased over the previous three months slumped to +5 in July, from an average of +36 in the first half of 2016, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The Nationwide measure is based only on the lender’s mortgage offers, so it is susceptible to sampling issues, he said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest House price growth since 2013. Illustration: Pantheon Macroeconomics
Tombs said the annual growth rate on the Nationwide measure of house prices was not always an accurate guide to the official data.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/31/uk-house-prices-edge-up-in-august-nationwide-says
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/86b858e947b2d98100abe49ed539fb43293a3dfb7d3f2a565c8eac1af3850e2f.json
|
|
[
"Louise Taylor"
] | 2016-08-26T18:50:50 | null | 2016-08-26T17:54:06 |
David Moyes’ appears close to signing Vicente Iborra from Sevilla and hopes also to bring Yann M’Vila from Rubin Kazan to Sunderland
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsunderland-7m-vicente-iborra-sevilla-david-moyes-yann-mvila.json
|
en
| null |
Sunderland’s £7m bid for Vicente Iborra accepted by Sevilla
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sunderland have had a £7m offer for the Sevilla midfielder Vicente Iborra accepted and remain keen on also signing Yann M’Vila from Rubin Kazan.
Although Iborra is believed to be enthusiastic about relocating to the Stadium of Light, there is interest from other clubs and any deal seems unlikely to be finalised until after the weekend.
David Moyes will get it right at Sunderland, says Steven Pienaar Read more
A Europa League winner for the past three seasons, the versatile 28-year-old regarded in some quarters as a “superior Marouane Fellaini” not only caught David Moyes’s eye during the Sunderland manager’s time in charge of Real Sociedad but was wanted by Sam Allardyce before he swapped Wearside for the England job.
M’Vila impressed on loan at Sunderland last season and there are only four months remaining on the former France midfielder’s contract in Russia but much depends on whether Rubin Kazan reduce a seemingly steep asking price.
“It’s a complicated situation but we keep trying,” said Moyes, whose already slender squad has been ravaged by a rash of injuries. “We’ve got one or two offers in for players right now and we’re actively trying to improve the squad.”
With an elbow ligament injury sidelining Vito Mannone – who may yet need surgery – for a minimum of three months, Moyes requires an extra goalkeeper. While it is unclear whether he will be bought to understudy the highly rated 22-year-old England Under-21 keeper Jordan Pickford or go straight into the first team, Sunderland’s manager has not ruled out a potential loan move for for Manchester City’s newly ousted former no1, Joe Hart.
A compromise would almost certainly need to be reached with City over the England goalkeeper’s £125,000 weekly wage but Moyes – who admits Pickford could easily have started the season ahead of Mannone – appears open to the possibility.
“I’ll need to wait and see what’s available in the next few days,” said a manager keen to add the widely coveted young Barnsley defender Alfie Mawson to his squad while also actively seeking an attacking partner for Jermain Defoe. “I’ve given Jordan the jersey for now and we’ll see how things go from here.”
Pickford will be in goal at Southampton on Saturday when Moyes hopes to collect his first point – or points – since succeeding Allardyce. “It was very tight between Jordan and Vito at the start of the season,” he said. “Vito, with his experience, got the jersey but Jordan’s well liked here and we’re looking forward to having him in the team. And I do believe if you get young English players in your side, it draws a lot of attention to your football club as it’s something the media and the public want to see.”
There is, though, a caveat which could yet open the door for Hart. “We’ll see how Jordan does in the games,” said Moyes. “It’s a big step up from where he’s been and it’s not easy for young goalkeepers. I’m confident that he’ll be fine and he’ll get a chance – but the Premier League is a different animal.”
Lamine Koné,, meanwhile, still anxious to join Everton, could return to central defence for Moyes’s team following his return to light training after a back complaint. “I’ll have to assess Lamine but, if he’s fit, he’ll play,” said Sunderland’s manager who remains adamant he will not accept the Merseysiders’ £18m bid. “I need him.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/26/sunderland-7m-vicente-iborra-sevilla-david-moyes-yann-mvila
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/15860c96d46a02d742f52f2d8feaf349a352a3174debe14c5f4647a4f59d1626.json
|
|
[
"Robin Mckie"
] | 2016-08-27T20:58:59 | null | 2016-07-02T19:34:35 |
A research team at Barts Cancer Institute in London is constructing a cancerous growth from scratch to improve treatment
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Fjul%2F02%2Fcancer-lab-grown-tumour-research-treatment.json
|
en
| null |
Lab-grown tumour could hold key to cancer
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
British scientists have started work on a revolutionary construction project: building a tumour from its basic biological components.
While the idea of building rather than destroying a tumour might seem perverse, the aim is to understand how cancers develop and how they spread through the body. To achieve this ambitious goal, the researchers based at Barts Cancer Institute in London have taken tissue from ovarian cancer patients and stripped these samples down to their constituent components. Now they are using these to try to rebuild a tumour from scratch.
How nanotechnology research could cure cancer and other diseases Read more
The project, known as CanBuild, has been funded through a £1.78m grant from the European Union and Cancer Research UK and is intended to provide insights into the complex process by which cancers develop. In the wake of this work, improved tumour treatments could be created, say researchers.
Work on CanBuild began in 2013 and is expected to be completed in two years. However, preliminary results will be unveiled early in July in a special display of the team’s work that will form a part of the Royal Society’s summer exhibition in London.
“It is common to think of cancers as being simple balls of malignant cells,” said project leader Prof Fran Balkwill. “But that is not the case. Only about half the cells that make up a tumour are actually cancerous. Other non-malignant cells that are found in a tumour include immune cells such as macrophages, lymphocytes, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, fat cells and many more. A tumour is really an entire organ – a rogue organ, more precisely – that has acquired its own blood vessels and structure thanks to the additional cells it has acquired.”
Crucially, these additional cells are not actually grown by the cancers themselves. They are suborned from surrounding healthy tissue.
Then, after they are recruited by the cancer, they are corrupted by it in order to help it develop. “These are cells that have been turned to the dark side,” said Balkwill.
A cancer is triggered when genetic switches within a cell – for example, a cell from a lung or from breast tissue –are turned on, causing it to divide uncontrollably. Fail-safe mechanisms within the cell normally stop or hold back this process of unbridled self-replication. However, on occasions, these defence mechanisms fail and a tumour begins to form.
“At the very start, when the tumour only consists of a few malignant cells, genes are turned on inside their nuclei,” said Balkwill. “These genes direct the cells to make chemicals that are known as cytokines and chemokines – and these chemicals are responsible for recruiting all the other cells that go to make up a tumour.”
Among the cells that are drawn into the growing cancer by these chemical messengers are fibroblasts which manufacture the matrix that provides tissue with its structure. Others include lymphocytes, dendritic cells, natural killer cells and macrophages which are normally involved in the body’s immune defences. By subverting these cells to its cause, the cancer suppresses the body’s immune responses and so manages to escape detection and attack.
'Trojan horse' cancer-fighting injection sparks hope in human trials Read more
In addition, cells that facilitate the development of blood vessels are drawn into the emerging cancer, supplying the newly created cancer with a source of energy – as well as material to create a structure for itself and to provide defences against immune attack.
Balkwill believes that this whole complex process is driven by the initial malignant cell. It is not an inherent property of the tissue in which the tumour first arises, she insists. “The idea is controversial, I admit, but I believe it is right,” she added.
Having isolated the various building blocks that are suborned to make a tumour, Balkwill and her colleagues are now trying to put them back together to create one. “We have taken ovarian tumours and analysed their composition and now we are trying to put together those pieces in order to create one tumour. Essentially we have deconstructed a tumour and now we are going to try to reconstruct one.
“The crucial point is that in putting one together – which we will do in the laboratory – we learn so much about a particular tumour, we hope that we will be able to find ways of blocking or disrupting that process in the human body.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/02/cancer-lab-grown-tumour-research-treatment
|
en
| 2016-07-02T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/125615f1870eff24ad0e4259fae553845c7b1c018f32b36ba397f4f6da3803fa.json
|
|
[
"Graham Hardcastle"
] | 2016-08-31T10:53:01 | null | 2016-08-31T10:35:54 |
With Graham Hardcastle at the Ageas Bowl for Hampshire v Yorkshire
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fcounty-cricket-hampshire-yorkshire-live.json
|
en
| null |
County cricket: Hampshire v Yorkshire and more - live!
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
• Updates from the Ageas Bowl and news from seven other county matches
• Weekly talking points: Yorkshire beat Notts to keep pressure on Middlesex
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2016/aug/31/county-cricket-hampshire-yorkshire-live
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9f1a413ee0bed967004bfda8ea5f7e45f676c03d174cb9fa8b04393b476d5710.json
|
|
[
"Cian Fahey"
] | 2016-08-30T10:52:45 | null | 2016-08-30T09:00:26 |
Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano might survive another season if Luck stays healthy, but is Brock Osweiler the right man to lead the Texans’ offense?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fafc-south-preview-andrew-luck-indianapolis-colts-nfl.json
|
en
| null |
AFC South questions for 2016: can Andrew Luck drag the Colts to the postseason?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Will Andrew Luck get hurt again?
Chuck Pagano and Ryan Grigson survived the 2015 season. They won’t survive another like it.
For too long, Pagano and Grigson have relied on Andrew Luck to cover their failings. Before last season, the Colts had been to the playoffs every year under their current regime. Last season was the first time they missed out, and it was also the first season in which Luck faltered. Luck never looked healthy. He struggled to throw the ball downfield, despite repeatedly making some of the most difficult throws a quarterback can make to that point of his career. He often made those throws look relatively easy, too. Without Luck, Pagano and Grigson’s Colts still competed in the AFC South, but that was more a reflection on the quality of the division than the quality of their team.
Colin Kaepernick's anthem protest is all the more brave due to his career slump Read more
Surviving allowed Pagano and Grigson to focus on the roster’s greatest flaw: its offensive line.
According to Football Outsiders, Luck led the league in knockdowns (hits + sacks) in each of the 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons. He didn’t play enough to lead the league in 2015 but still ranked in the top six for knockdown percentage. As a testament to his quality, Luck has thrown more touchdown passes than interceptions on those plays. Asking your quarterback to perform under that kind of duress each season not only puts pressure on him to stay healthy, it also makes it extremely difficult to create an efficient passing game. Pagano and Grigson had two options: they could either find better offensive linemen, or alter their philosophy to alleviate the pressure on their current linemen.
Unsurprisingly, the Colts chose the most direct route. The Colts have had some terrible linemen in front of Luck. Gosder Cherilus, Todd Herremans and Samson Satele headline the veteran busts that the team has acquired out of desperation. That desperation has existed because they have repeatedly failed to develop the linemen they draft. Jack Mewhort and Anthony Castonzo have become competent starters but that’s about it. Castonzo is the team’s left tackle and Mewhort was expected to be the team’s left guard this year but suffered an ACL tear during the preseason. The Colts drafted three offensive linemen that they intended to eventually insert into the line alongside Castonzo and Mewhort. Center Ryan Kelly was a first round pick, tackle Le’Raven Clark was a third-round pick and guard Joe Haeg was a fifth-round pick. Haeg and Clark both look like developmental players who need to sit at this stage. One might be forced to start because of Mewhort’s injury, though.
Pagano showed no confidence in his new offense. Luck was held out of the first pre-season game and the franchise openly acknowledged that Rex Ryan’s pass rush was the reason why. During the third preseason game, Luck was pulled from the game earlier than expected because of the team’s failing pass protection. After that game, the normally upbeat Pagano appeared more defeated than ever before: “When you don’t have a clean pocket, you don’t have time to stand in there and push the ball downfield. We’ve got to be better, obviously. I’m not going to make any excuses, but we’ve got some guys out of there right now that have been in there. You start playing musical chairs again and it’s tough.”
Mewhort’s loss combined with the developmental status of two of the rookies means the Colts offensive line is unlikely to improve. This is where Pagano should earn his money and adapt his offense to fit his personnel. That’s not something he’s ever been willing to do when Luck has been available.
After the 2014 season, Pagano was asked about his team’s philosophy. His response featured all the hallmarks of bad coaching: “We’ll never change [our run-first] mindset. New England rushed 46 times. In all three other [divisional] games, the winner(s) all rushed for 30 times and averaged [144.3] yards. The losing teams averaged 88 yards rushing. So will we ever change? No.”
Pagano doesn’t understand that teams who play with a lead are more likely to run the ball, so winning teams run – but running teams don’t necessarily win. He also used the Patriots as an example to support his philosophy – the same Patriots who had abandoned the run and thrown the ball 50 times the previous week. Being stubborn as a head coach is never a good thing. Pagano is stubborn, so he won’t alter the scheme his offense runs, regardless of who the offensive coordinator is.
Luck will again play in a heavy-set, run-first, power scheme that asks him to hold the ball and take deep dropbacks on every other snap. That will stress the offensive line as much as possible. If Pagano didn’t work under a misguided thought process, he would put Luck in a shotgun-heavy offense that would allow the quarterback to get rid of the ball quickly to short and intermediate routes. That would both protect Luck and ask the offensive line to block for a shorter time. Pagano will blame his offensive linemen or Luck, like he has previously, without realizing he is the biggest problem in Indianapolis.
Because Luck is still the greatest equalizer in the league when healthy, the Colts could still win the AFC South. History shows us that he can drag bad teams to the playoffs even while being buried with burdens few quarterbacks in history could carry. If that happens again, Pagano and Grigson might even survive another season.
Has Bill O’Brien put the right pieces in place in Houston?
Bill O’Brien has an 18-14 record as the Houston Texans head coach. He made the playoffs for the first time last year after his second successive winning season. On the surface, the Texans appear to be an ascending team entering the offseason. Yet the roster had more problems than most entering the offseason.
Despite his success over his first two years in Houston, O’Brien hadn’t tied himself to a quarterback. He hadn’t even made a real effort to find a quarterback, instead swapping out different sets from the sale stand of subpar starters. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brandon Weeden, Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer have all started for the Texans over the past two years. Tom Savage was the only quarterback Rick Smith drafted since O’Brien was hired. Savage only cost a fourth-round pick and has thrown 19 passes in total during his two-year career. That changed this offseason. After Hoyer’s disastrous playoff performance at the end of last season, O’Brien set about overhauling his whole offense.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Osweiler should be allowed to be more of a game manager than a gamebreaker. Photograph: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
First, he found his quarterback. Brock Osweiler was signed to a $72m deal in free agency. The former Denver Broncos second-round pick only has eight career starts, and had never even spoken with O’Brien before the Texans tied themselves to him. Osweiler is tall and has a strong arm, but he didn’t stand out as superior to the old, broken-down version of Peyton Manning that was on the field in 2015. That’s why he was benched for the playoffs. The Texans aren’t expecting Osweiler to be Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. They’ve built a supporting cast around him that should allow him to be more of a game manager than gamebreaker.
Lamar Miller will join DeAndre Hopkins as a foundational piece of the offense. Miller is one of the most talented backs in the NFL but was criminally underused by Joe Philbin and his staff in Miami over recent years. Philbin’s usage of Miller was a big reason for his firing. O’Brien has proven over the past two years that he will feed his running backs, especially the more talented ones. Hopkins is less of a receiver and more of a planet. He has a gravitational pull that sucks the ball into his grasp whenever it is thrown in his general direction. With Miller breaking off big runs and Hopkins turning heaves into easy catches, Osweiler has two crutches to lean on.
The Texans spent their first four picks in the 2016 draft on offensive pieces to complement Osweiler, Miller and Hopkins.
Will Fuller was picked to add speed outside. The Notre Dame receiver was a polarizing prospect in the draft because he combined big plays with big drops. Fuller will hope to take advantage of any extra attention that is pushed Hopkins’ way. In the third round, the Texans added Braxton Miller, a converted quarterback who will play in the slot. Miller is a great athlete who needs to develop his route running. He should be valuable to Osweiler because of his YAC ability on short throws and/or screens. Nick Martin, the team’s second round pick and projected starting center, was lost for the season during training camp.
Even with JJ Watt’s back injury lingering over the start of the season, the Texans should have a very good defense. This means their season will be defined by how the offense comes together.
Can the Jaguars’ new-look defense match their offense?
If the Jaguars line up as expected in week one, they will have five new defensive starters. When you add in players who are likely to rotate on and off the field regularly, that number will jump to seven or eight. The Jaguars defense gave up 375 yards per game last year, ninth most in the NFL, and conceded 28 points per game, the second most in the NFL. While the offense has to take some of the responsibility for the amount of points the defense gave up because Blake Bortles threw 18 interceptions, the defense on its own was disastrous. Football Outsiders’ DVOA, an advanced metric that measures efficiency on a snap-by-snap basis, ranked the Jaguars defense as the seventh-worst unit in the league. They ranked 31st against the pass and 17th against the run.
Getting better against the pass was a focal point for head coach Gus Bradley and general manager David Caldwell during the offseason.
Malik Jackson was an integral piece of the Denver Broncos defense that dragged Peyton Manning to the Super Bowl last year. As a defensive tackle, Jackson isn’t a big sack-getter, but the disruption he consistently provides from the interior is just as valuable. Jackson and Sen’Derrick Marks, whose past two seasons have been disrupted by an ACL tear he suffered during the 2014 season, could create one of the best defensive tackle pairings in the NFL. Marks is unlikely to play every down, though, so the combination will likely be limited to more obvious passing downs. With Jackson and Marks pushing the pocket from the inside, the pressure will be on Dante Fowler to produce off the edge.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Can the Jaguars fulfil their potential and make the playoffs? Photograph: Rob Foldy/Getty Images
Fowler was a top-five pick in the 2015 draft but tore his ACL during his first professional practice. His absence contributed to the Jaguars finishing 20th in the league in sacks. Early reports on Fowler in training camp were overwhelmingly positive, but the Jaguars are concerned about him mentally ahead of what is essentially his first season. Bradley said ahead of the third preseason game: “It’s been challenging as far as the film study and every day practice and things like that. He’s really spent extra time with [defensive coordinator Todd Wash] watching film.”
Fowler and Yannick Ngakoue are expected to be the Jaguars’ primary edge rushers. The rookie Ngakoue won’t start ahead of Jared Odrick, but his flexibility and athleticism should be more useful on passing downs.
Improving the pass rush alone isn’t enough for the Jaguars. When you rank 31st against the pass by DVOA, it usually means you’re failing to get to the passer and you’re failing to cover his receivers every week.
Prince Amukamara and Tashaun Gipson were excellent value signings for the Jaguars in free agency. Gipson in particular will be a key starter in an area – free safety – where the Jaguars have struggled massively for as long as Bradley has been the head coach. Neither Amukamara or Gipson offered the star power that came from the draft though. The Jaguars picked Jalen Ramsey fifth overall. Since 1970, only 18 defensive backs have been selected in the top five of the draft.
Ramsey is only the sixth defensive back to go that high since 2000. He was a combine superstar who repeatedly shut down receivers at the college level while playing for FSU. He is so talented that the debate over where Ramsey would play in the NFL – safety or cornerback – didn’t argue between success and failure: it argued between All-Pro and Hall of Fame. The Jaguars decided that Ramsey would play cornerback. He has drawn early comparisons to Patrick Peterson with his length and athleticism.
The Jaguars only had one pick in the top five of the draft but they wound up with two top-five players. Myles Jack fell to them in the second round because of a knee problem that will eventually require surgery. In the short term, Jack is expected to be a key defender in coverage over the middle of the field. NBC’s Josh Norris ranked Jack as the best player in the draft. “Despite Telvin Smith being athletic, he is not good in coverage,” Norris said. “Paul Posluszny has difficulty covering ground. So, at a minimum, Jack should impact in nickel and dime sets, in both zone and man situations.”
Jack and Ramsey are impact players. So are Jackson, Amukamara and Gipson. Fowler and Ngakoue could be, too. The real question for the Jaguars is if Bradley is the right coach to mold this new class of talent into a quality defense. If he is, the Jaguars could fulfill some of their potential and make the playoffs. If he’s not, the next coach will be inheriting a very talented roster in 2017.
Will Mularkeyball work for the Titans?
The Tennessee Titans ran for 288 yards in their first preseason game this year. Two hundred and eighty-eight yards! It was quite the introduction for Mike Mularkey’s ‘exotic smashmouth’ offense. It was also a somewhat contrived introduction. Mularkey used his whole playbook during a game when teams typically employ basic schemes, and he also left his first-teamers in to go against the Chargers’ second-teamers. That created some excitement and optimism around a team that has had very little reason for excitement and optimism lately.
Mularkey was hired in the offseason after serving as the interim coach for the departed Ken Whisenhunt. Whisenhunt was fired because he had a 3-20 record, yet Mularkey was hired in spite of his 18-39 career record as a head coach and 4-21 record over his previous 25 games. Mularkey was no different from Whisenhunt, or at the very least he was no better. What made the hire even more frustrating was the apparent sham interview process that the Titans used to hire him.
CEO Steve Underwood didn’t help matters when the topic was broached at Mularkey’s introductory press conference, saying that “[owner Amy Adams Strunk] largely knew that she wanted to keep Mularkey.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota. Photograph: Jim Brown/USA Today Sports
With fans already frustrated, Mularkey and new general manager Jon Robinson set about building a team that could dominate the 1970s.
“Exotic smashmouth” is designed to be a run-heavy, run-based offense. The Titans want to focus their offense around DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry, making Marcus Mariota more of a complementary piece. Think Kordell Stewart or Colin Kaepernick, as opposed to Tom Brady or Drew Brees. Mariota can run, but he’s not a runner like Mularkey’s former quarterback Stewart. He showed during his rookie season that he is an excellent pocket passer, someone who can diagnose coverages, mitigate pressure in the pocket with his footwork and throw receivers open with his accuracy. Mariota’s only limitation was/is his inability to throw deep downfield. Yet Mularkey wants to run an offense that will make him more of a runner and shot-play passer. It’ll make Mariota incapable of elevating his teammates because he will have less flexibility in his assignments.
Mularkey’s impact on Mariota will be more important than any record the Titans can achieve this year. If he destroys the former Oregon prospect’s development, it will impact the direction of the team for the next decade. Mariota is the second best quarterback in the AFC South, the Titans shouldn’t need to be great around him to contend. Mularkey’s track record, his antiquated philosophy and his limited roster suggests they will be far from great.
They will be lucky to escape the basement of the AFC South.
Predictions
Colts 11-5
Texans 8-8
Jaguars 8-8
Titans 4-12
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/30/afc-south-preview-andrew-luck-indianapolis-colts-nfl
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/97ff14d7ca8f04d3d9e86a91ae965b492e8ddfa81384aa15a185c601a47634a0.json
|
|
[
"Ellen Brait",
"Mahita Gajanan"
] | 2016-08-29T14:55:09 | null | 2015-08-05T20:17:37 |
Amid the grocery chain’s flavored water fiasco, the Guardian interviewed nutritionists for expert opinions on the trend that will never be worth $6 a bottle
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2015%2Faug%2F05%2Fwhole-foods-asparagus-water-health-fruits-vegetables.json
|
en
| null |
Whole Foods' asparagus water: do fruits and vegetables add health benefits?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The latest craze of flavored water reached a new level this week when a Whole Foods store placed three stalks of asparagus in water and threw a $6 price tag on the side. Shortly after, they admitted the product was a mistake.
'Asparagus water' and $8 eggs: Whole Foods proves it knows its customers Read more
But the episode did raise the question: are any of these flavored waters actually better for you than what comes from the tap? The Guardian spoke to nutritionists and the consensus seemed to be that adding fruit or vegetables gave “slight benefits”, and some additions are superior to others.
Leslie Bonci, a sports nutrition consultant based in Pittsburgh, said people have added everything to water, including artichokes, maple and now, asparagus. “Everyone is always looking for something new. Water alone isn’t good enough anymore,” she said. “We know we need water, but it becomes boring.”
Although Bonci supports people keeping hydrated, she said asparagus in water at $6 a bottle is probably not the best way to go about it. “If someone wants to eat asparagus they should, but the amount you put in the water has to be minimal, and you don’t necessarily improve the nutritional value of what you’re drinking,” she said. “To get the benefit [of asparagus] you need half a cup, and no way you’re getting it out of the three pieces.”
Nutritionist Dr Janet Brill , meanwhile, likes the trend for flavored water. “As far as putting healthy fruits and vegetables in the water, that’s a fabulous idea because yes, some– probably not very much – but some of the fiber chemicals are going to reach out into the water so you will be getting a slight benefit over plain water,” she said.
While Brill argued that “there’s nothing wrong with throwing asparagus spears in your water”, she also thinks people are “nuts” for spending the amount they do on such products. She recommended water bottles that allow people to place fruits or vegetables in their water themselves.
Brill said strawberries, citrus and lemon juice were probably better options than asparagus because when squeezed, they are definitely releasing vitamins into the water. She also recommends water with fresh fruits or vegetables rather than water flavored through other means. Those, she says, will probably not contain as many nutrients as water with the real fruits and vegetables in it.
Other flavored waters, such as detox beverages that involve soaking citrus fruits and ginger in water can be beneficial, Bonci said. These drinks can be prepared in the same amount of time and for a fraction of the cost of buying the bottled water, she said.
Alexis Newman, a nutritionist based near Philadelphia, said adding fruits and vegetables to water mostly aids in enhancing the water’s flavor, although it can provide some nutrients. “Ideally you’re supposed to get half your body weight in ounces of water, and for some people that’s really hard, so if you have some fruit flavor, it’s easier to get it,” Newman said. “Any fruit could potentially work because it has more to do with what you like as a flavor.”
Personally, Newman said she likes strawberries in her water. But she hadn’t tried asparagus and hadn’t heard about adding vegetables like asparagus to her water until Whole Foods tried to sell it.
Some minerals from asparagus could make a bottle of water more nutritious, she said. But it’s more important to eat “real, whole foods”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/05/whole-foods-asparagus-water-health-fruits-vegetables
|
en
| 2015-08-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e617ee5a71f0fc171a56d673f41f9371e7a904fb75e662bf083027be8f1cec06.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:23 | null | 2016-08-31T08:04:17 |
ITV soap was criticised after a character made a comment about her hair having ‘more roots than Kunta Kinte’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fcoronation-street-apologises-complaints-itv-eva-price.json
|
en
| null |
Coronation Street apologises after complaints over 'racist' remark
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Coronation Street bosses have apologised after the soap was accused of racism for a comment a character made about her hair.
The episode on Bank Holiday Monday saw Eva Price, played by Catherine Tyldesley, visit Audrey’s hair salon, where she remarked: “I have more roots than Kunta Kinte.
“No idea who that is, by the way, just something my mum used to say.”
Rav Wilding sues makers of Splash! after diving injury 'changed my life' Read more
Kunta Kinte was a character from the novel Roots: the Saga of an American Family, which was adapted into a hit TV miniseries.
Based on a real-life ancestor of author Alex Haley, it tells the story of a young man taken from Gambia and sold as a slave.
Viewers complained about the comment on Twitter.
Shiv Henry wrote: “Really Coronation Street? I think you need to have a word with the scriptwriter!”
Epic Mase RCG wrote: “So what’s up with the cultural insensitivity on Coronation Street? ‘I got more Roots than Kunta Kinte’ That’s kinda racist...”
Monica Rambeau wrote: “White people shouldn’t feel comfortable to make Kunta Kinte ‘jokes’ let alone write them into scripts.”
Aaron Moffat-Jackman, a trainee vicar from Old Trafford, told the Manchester Evening News: “What it did was trivialise a horrific traumatic time for many people.
“Particularly at a time when things are ongoing in America, with many black people getting killed by police, by white people. I think it would be very welcome for ITV to apologise.”
A spokeswoman for the soap said: “We apologise if this dialogue has caused offence.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/31/coronation-street-apologises-complaints-itv-eva-price
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/02eac6ca68e9ffc70f28d0df7621eafa0a863203ba313581a941a341f1ae993e.json
|
|
[
"Matthew Horton"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:17 | null | 2016-08-26T10:59:17 |
’Tis the season for an all-conquering pop anthem, but 2016 has failed to produce a sunshine hit. Should we blame it on Brexit, or is it Drake’s fault?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmusic%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsummer-hits-get-lucky-daft-punk-drake-brexit.json
|
en
| null |
Cruel summer: where is this year’s Get Lucky?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Do you know your summer pop hits? – quiz Read more
When pop star and millennial tastemaker Lorde tweeted earlier this month, “guys @ToveLo is casually about to drop the pop song of the summer”, it seemed too good to be true. Would Tove Lo’s Cool Girl, accompanied by a jolly gif of the Swedish singer flashing her bum, succeed where so many had failed? Could 2016 finally have its ubiquitous sunshine banger?
Apparently not. Lorde’s idea of the sort of song you can dance all night to is for head nodding instead. Where is our Get Lucky, our I Gotta Feeling, our Macarena? Where is our Saturday Night? The upbeat summer song is as essential to the months of June, July and August as wearing flip-flops to work. This was our last chance and we fluffed it.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest How Lo can you go?
Summer 2016 looks destined to be remembered as the season when nothing stuck. No definitive tune rang out in the lidos, no consensus spread across social media, and no song embedded itself deeply enough in collective memory to be swooned over by Rylan Clark-Neal in I Love Summer 2016 telly specials to come. Dig about for “song of the summer” on social media and you’ll find fans resorting to bigging up tracks from the hammy likes of Adam Lambert and Meghan Trainor. No consensus, no surefire summery vibes. We didn’t fight in the LMFAO wars for this.
There were more credible contenders, of course. We could have made a proper hit out of Dua Lipa sizzler Hotter Than Hell (it reached No 15 in the UK), admitted we actually enjoyed the dad-disco of Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop The Feeling, or embraced the Avalanches’ Jackson 5-ish Because I’m Me. Still, these are slim pickings. Sure, Sia and Sean Paul’s Cheap Thrills has beamed out of every high street shop but would your mum know the chorus? There’s nothing to unite the people any more.
A poisonous political atmosphere hasn’t helped, but we can’t lay it all on Kimye versus Taylor. There was Brexit, too. But, if anything, summer pop thrives against doomy headlines. Even in 1984, with every second top 10 hit predicting a nuclear winter – Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Two Tribes, Nik Kershaw’s I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me, Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes – Black Lace’s Agadoo stole the season. Reggie ’N’ Bollie could have at least cheered us up with some novelty bilge. There are worse ideas. Possibly.
But perhaps summer 2016’s real Grinch is Drake. As One Dance annexed the No 1 spot, July came around and we were still saddled with a song from early spring – a summer anthem by default. We’ll get no California Gurls or Hot In Herre this year, but we’ll always have One Dance. It feels like it already.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/26/summer-hits-get-lucky-daft-punk-drake-brexit
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7e9a7e84c453a794316b5f0b4bce0611ea4458851bfd3b48de2c27c5890f481a.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Readers",
"Carmen Fishwick"
] | 2016-08-31T08:52:48 | null | 2016-08-31T08:32:01 |
France’s burkini bans have put what women wear under scrutiny. Five Muslim women tell us why they choose to cover up, or dress modestly at the beach
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fwhy-we-wear-the-burkini-five-women-on-dressing-modestly-at-the-beach.json
|
en
| null |
Why we wear the burkini: five women on dressing modestly at the beach
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
France’s highest administrative court suspended a ban on the burkini in a test case in a southern town of Nice, yet the majority of mayors who support the ban are refusing to lift the restrictions despite the ruling.
Lawyers argued that the bans were feeding fear and infringing on basic freedoms, but resistance from more than 20 mayors has left France in a dilemma about how to react.
Around 40 demonstrators gathered outside the French embassy in London on Thursday, for a ‘wear what you want’ beach party to protest the ban. Woman held flags and banners reading ‘Islamophobia is not freedom’, and ‘Our choice’.
Aheda Zanetti, the garment’s creator, says it isn’t something to be mistaken for oppression, or a symbol of Islam. “It’s just a garment to suit a modest person, or someone who has skin cancer, or a new mother who doesn’t want to wear a bikini” she says.
We asked women to tell us why they wear the burkini or dress modestly at the beach, and what it means to them.
‘I am a Muslim woman and I am proud to be recognised as one’
We live in a very materialistic society where people are very shallow and conscious about their appearance. I dress this way because it’s a commandment from Allāh, I am a Muslim women and I am proud to be recognised as one. Regardless of what people think.
Nuns dress like Muslims and so do the orthodox Jewish females. There is no uproar about the way they dress. Anonymous
I choose to dress this way because it gives me freedom, I don’t have to worry about strange men looking at my figure desiring me in a sexual way or people commenting on the way I look, judging my looks or talking about my clothes.
I adhere to the Islamic dress code which is called a Jilbab. The terminology for the Islamic attire is often mixed up in the media when it comes to the dress itself. A Jilbab is what covers you from head-to-toe, showing only your hands and face.
People react in many different ways depending on what’s happening around the world. Some people say, that I should go back to my country! Three generations of my family were born here in London, so that makes me more British than half of the people who say this to me!
People look at me strangely. I’ve noticed people will not sit next to me on the train or bus except ethnic minorities. People will mumble things under their breath. I’m an educated Muslim female, who works, whose whole family are Christians, pays taxes just like everyone else. People shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
We live in a multicultural society. The nuns dress like Muslims and so do the orthodox Jewish females. And there is no uproar about the way they dress.
Anonymous, 26, estate agent, London
‘God has made me intrinsically beautiful, I’m never dependent on a man to make me feel this way’
At the beach, I stick to long skirts and footless tights. I won’t swim in the water but I’ll walk into the sea up to my calves and splash around with the kids. I wear a hijab covering all my hair, head and neck along with either abaya or long line western clothes when in public, otherwise at home I don’t wear hijab.
The ironic thing about hijab and dressing modestly is that personally it makes me feel beautiful when I have it all on and beautiful when at home I take it off. There’s an underlying acceptance here that in choosing to dress this way, I’ve chosen to believe God has made me intrinsically beautiful, I’m never dependent on a man to make me feel this way. Of course a compliment on my appearance by a well-meaning man is flattering and occasionally, I confess, welcome but I don’t feel worthless if otherwise I go by unnoticed by strangers.
I don’t feel worthless if otherwise I go by unnoticed by strangers. Aisha
Other people’s reactions are generally either neutral or positive. Nobody, thankfully, has ever given me grief at the beach in the UK. The negative experiences overall have been infrequent, but then I tend to avoid places where I feel there will be hostility.
I believe it’s a religious obligation on me to wear hijab and dress modestly in public because I’ve chosen to worship Allah and accept this part of my faith; dressing this way makes me feel content and I like feeling that way.
It doesn’t make me feel morally superior to any other person in a wider context as I don’t see the hijab as an absolute, objective marker of being good. Our scriptures both the Quran and Hadith are peppered with examples which either implicitly or explicitly state that the hearts are the centre of human value, so my co-religionists and I can and should never throw judgement on another person’s worth. And this belief is consistent in both Sufi and Salafi interpretations of Islam- that judgement of the hearts resides completely with Allah.
A young Muslim girl in year 10 asked my colleague for my name because she liked the way I dress - apparently I was genuinely her ‘style icon’!
Aisha, 29, Birmingham, UK
‘I don’t wish to be the prey of ogling men’
My choice of dress should give me respect. This is my body, I should have the right to cover whichever part of my body I like. I prefer to wear the burkini because this way of dressing gives me safety and comfort. I don’t wish to be the prey of ogling men.
Singapore is a multi-racial country, and the government considers each and every person’s rights. People and government are not concerned about what you wear, bikini or burkini. They don’t interfere with your choice of clothes.
France was always considered to be a country that safeguards individual freedoms and rights. Fafa
I always feel free to wear my burkini at beaches in Asia, public pools and resorts. People don’t look at me differently when I wear a burkini. France was always considered to be a country that safeguards individual freedoms and rights. But recent events suggest that minority rights are being trampled and they aren’t allowed to choose their own lifestyle. The majority seems to be forcing their ideologies on the minority. This is not liberty nor freedom!
Fafa, 33, mother, Singapore
‘My religion requires me to cover up, to beautify myself in a sexual way for my husband alone’
I try to dress modestly according to the Quran and sunnah, so I wear anything to the beach which doesn’t contradict my Islamic dress. I dress in what I consider a modest manner which can mean jeans with a kaftan top to help conceal my shape, or a maxi dress with leggings underneath.
I love colours, but my only requirement when out shopping is something not too form firing. I normally buy one size up. If I like something, but it is sleeveless for example, I will just layer with a cardigan or under body top to cover my arms. I do not show any skin except my face, hands and feet. I have friends that wear the burkini. They are more than happy to be wearing this while taking part in an activity which is apart of our religious obligation.
In my garden or amongst relatives and obviously at home my dress code is adhered to less. And I cover my hair with a hijab. If I am attending a girls only party, I will dress up to the nines because there is no question of being sexually alluring to my girlfriends. However on the way to and from the party I will cover up with a long light robe or kimono.
I choose to dress this way because I love the power it gives me. No man will ogle me, or make me feel small with a wolf whistle or leer. I am not invisible, I walk with my head held high. I am not a victim; no man makes me dress this way. Neither my father nor brothers give a damn how I choose to dress. I do not think anything less of women who dress differently to me.
My religion requires me to cover up, to beautify myself in a sexual way for my husband alone, and I am more than happy to follow this aspect of my religion.
People react differently to how I dress, some sneer ever so slightly and whisper behind their hands. Amera
People react differently to how I dress, some sneer ever so slightly and whisper behind their hands, others are more open in their hostility. Others just stare, and others pay no notice. I often find myself over compensating when dealing with white non-Muslims. I feel the need to be over nice and over friendly, especially with hostile people, and more often than not I’m met with indifference even though I’m going out of my way to be nice. On these occasions I do feel like saying screw you, but I refrain as I keep reminding myself of the beautiful and forgiving example of our Prophet Muhammad who met enmity with kindness.
Amera, 36, Yorkshire, UK
‘I am covered up from legs to neck and my lower arms are on display when there are women or family members present’
I enjoy wearing the burkini. As a Muslim woman I am enjoined by the Quran not to wear the same as non Muslim woman, and I should remain identifiably Muslim at all times. Anyone who says otherwise is either putting their love of the Dunya or their culture first. As a Muslim, we believe this world is a temporary pleasure trap, that will seduce you from your Akhira (our rewards in the afterlife). I am also commanded by Allah to be modest (Hayaa) and observe hijab at all times. So I am covered up from legs to neck and my lower arms are on display when there are women or family members present. I’m white British, and a revert Muslim. I can be British and Muslim.
Having grown up wearing normal swimwear the transition to wearing a burkini is not hard. It is no different to wearing swim shorts and a long sleeve swimming top. It also has the added benefit of preventing me from burning, which being a ghostly white colour for most of the year, was a painful and inevitable consequence of every visit to the beach or lido.
I’ve had a few good, long stares but nothing like what I have had when wearing a Niqab. I’m a big girl, I can take it. I’ll argue anyone down who attempts to claim they know better than the Quran.
I’m currently holidaying in the Île d’Oléron in France and have worn my burkini every day this holiday and insha Allah, I’ll be wearing it tomorrow and all holiday.
Jess, 44, Bedford, UK
If you wear a burkini or dress modestly, you can share your experiences here. We’ll use a selection in our reporting.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/why-we-wear-the-burkini-five-women-on-dressing-modestly-at-the-beach
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0a3666e6cff65c956d099dd800e49eb95b22edfaaf91d6d53e0f3bb3cd6c2c21.json
|
|
[
"John Vidal"
] | 2016-08-31T12:57:52 | null | 2016-08-31T12:51:31 |
Joan Rose, a microbiologist who has won the world’s most prestigious water prize, is both depressed and optimistic at progress to make water fit to drink
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fcleaning-the-worlds-water-we-are-now-more-polluted-than-we-have-ever-been.json
|
en
| null |
Cleaning the world's water: 'We are now more polluted than we have ever been'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In May 2000, around half of Walkerton’s 5,000 residents fell severely ill and seven people died when cow manure washed into a well. The extent of the water pollution in the small Canadian town was concealed from the public, people drank from their taps and the result was ruined lives.
For academic microbiologist Joan Rose, who has observed water pollution outbreaks around the world, it was the worst that she had ever experienced.
“It affected me the most. Walkerton is a small small farming community. The people there were very gracious. Two pathogens came in to their water supply. They did not know children would die, or would suffer kidney failure and be on on dialysis for the rest of their lives. I saw what it did to people. I saw the pain.”
Walkerton was one of Canada’s worst-ever pollution incidents but there are hundreds of similar incidents every year around the world, albeit mostly less serious, says Prof Rose, who is laboratory director in water research at Michigan State University.
Most come from people drinking water contaminated with sewage, she says. “In the US there are 12-18m cases of human water-borne diseases a year. In developing countries it is possible that one in three hospital cases may be due to contamination of water. We do not know exactly how bad it is but 1.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sewage treatment.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prof Joan Rose received the world’s most prestigious water prize at a conference in Stockholm this week. Photograph: Mikael Ullén/Stockholm International Water Institute
Rose, who this week was presented with the world’s most prestigious prize for water at a conference in Stockholm, is alternately depressed and optimistic at progress to clean the world’s water supplies and make water fit to drink.
“We have started to decrease mortality for waterborne diseases but the big problem now is morbidity [disease-related]. People are getting more sick. We are now more polluted than we have ever been”.
The statistics are dismal. This week the UN Environment Programme reported that “hundreds of millions” of people face health risks like cholera and typhoid from pathogens in water. Water pollution in Asia, Africa and Latin America is worsening, said the report, with pathogen pollution now in more than half of all rivers stretches on the three continents.
“There are 7 billion people and most of their waste is going into water. The water quality of lakes, rivers and coastal shorelines around the world is degrading at an alarming rate. There has been a great acceleration since the 1950s of human and animal populations, water withdrawals, pesticide and fertiliser use. But at the same time there has been a deceleration, or shrinkage, in wetlands,” says Rose.
“We are changing our lands. Land is the source of contamination, but climate is the driver [of contamination]. We know that the intensity of rainfall, storms and droughts is changing. More than 50% of community waterborne illness events in the US each year are associated with extreme rain.”
When it rains heavily or floods, pathogens like Leptospira, hepatitis, norovirus and cryptosporidium are all significant, she says. “There is a direct link between water pollution, certain food-borne disease outbreaks and warmer oceans. Temperature, precipitation, humidity and flooding are all factors in contamination of water and food systems by pathogens. Many developing nations suffer terribly from illnesses caused by lack of sewage treatment facilities which are exasperated by climate.”
Meanwhile, sewage contains well over 100 different viruses. Newly emerging viruses such as Cycloviruses, which are causing neurological problems in children in Asia, are also emerging in sewage and are spreading.
“Pollution is spreading to every part of the world. Everywhere is now under huge new attack from viruses and pathogens,” she says.
Rose has led research into how new pathogens and viruses are being spread around the world by hitching rides in the ballast water which ships take on to stabilise them on long journeys. They are picking up viruses in one ocean or sea and bringing them to others, she says
“We are infecting the food chain, and the whole system. I am thinking what are we missing about the bio-health of the planet. What do we know about what is happening in the wild? Frogs are dying, starfish are dying. We focus so much on humans we don’t know about much else. Every part of the world is now under huge new attack from viruses and pathogens.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest For almost two years, there has been a water crisis in Flint, Michigan, US. Photograph: Ryan Garza/AP
The answer, she says, must be massive investment in water infrastructure. “But in the US alone, it’s estimated that what is needed is $70 per person per day for 10 years. In developing countries its far more.”
But it has to be worth it, she says. “Access to clean water is a central stabilising force in societies and lack of access destabilises societies. As a microbiologist, I believe that the provision of safe drinking water is the basic building block of a healthy and successful society.
“It is hard to progress when you are fighting cholera, or when there is an epidemic of child malnutrition as in India due to exposure to untreated water contaminated with fecal waste.”
The better news, she says, is that scientists can now monitor pathogens better and track their sources. “What took three weeks to diagnose now takes 24 hours. There is more public support, more money, more political will to clean up water. We have more knowledge and more willingness to pay.
“The key is education, specifically development of a global water curriculum to prepare the next generation of problem solvers. The need is enormous.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/31/cleaning-the-worlds-water-we-are-now-more-polluted-than-we-have-ever-been
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/31f35b3f6448be00005ae95e1da0719650024358fe4f766280aa6c68ae4b9c4d.json
|
|
[
"Peter Walker"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:33 | null | 2016-08-25T11:49:00 |
Former party leader’s skilful handling of crowd will leave many wondering if those vying to succeed him could pull off such a performance
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ffarage-plays-strengths-donald-trump-rally-shows-what-ukip-lost.json
|
en
| null |
Farage plays to his strengths at Trump rally and shows what Ukip has lost
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
If there were any Ukip supporters still in doubt about what they have lost with the retirement of Nigel Farage, a glimpse of the longtime party leader addressing a Donald Trump rally in Mississippi would soon put them straight.
It was an arguably unpromising arena for Farage – a largely unknown British politician addressing a partisan crowd about a subject, Brexit, about which most audience members cared little.
But Farage won cheers by sticking to his time-honed rhetoric of slightly shaggy populism, low on specifics but heavy with generalist calls to national pride and taking back control.
“I think that you have a fantastic opportunity here,” he told the crowd. “With this campaign, you can go out, you can beat the pollsters, you can beat the commentators, you can beat Washington. And you’ll do it by doing what we did for Brexit in Britain.
“My advice for you – if you want change in this country, you’d better get your walking boots on, you’d better get out there campaigning. And remember, anything is possible if enough decent people are prepared to stand up against the establishment.”
This was a potentially tricky audience handled with skill and verve. It will leave some Ukippers wondering if any of the low-key candidates vying to succeed Farage next month – even the favourite, Diane James, is unrecognisable to most British voters – could pull off such a performance.
Also familiar to Farage-watchers was the seamless glossing over of contradictions. Here was a privately educated former City trader standing alongside a hereditary tycoon to announce that Brexit was “for the little people, for the real people”.
The parallels between Farage’s EU efforts and Trump’s policies are arguably limited, with little beyond a broad populism and focus on immigration. Farage himself emphasised the idea of an insurgent political force taking on the establishment.
He did not endorse Trump, but made plain his distaste for his Democrat foes, condemning Barack Obama’s decision to intervene in the EU referendum to urge Britons to vote remain.
“I could not possibly tell you how to vote in this election,” Farage said, “but I will say this, if I was an American citizen I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me.”
The speech indicates Farage is not entirely committed to a quiet retirement. As a man who has promised to step down as Ukip leader more than once only to return, he has thus far said he could return to frontline British politics only if the government delayed too long on invoking article 50, which begins the formal timetable for EU departure.
The slightly modest CVs of his would-be replacements – second-favourite Lisa Duffy boasts on her Twitter profile that she chairs the Christmas lights committee for the 8,000-population Cambridgeshire town where she is a councillor – will prompt more speculation that Farage’s taste for the limelight will lead him to come back yet again.
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/25/farage-plays-strengths-donald-trump-rally-shows-what-ukip-lost
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/94ba8b6408e36b2db3d8aabeed1c8d3df233d83e09d0c245b6f19fedcdd93cd5.json
|
|
[
"Peter Conrad"
] | 2016-08-28T08:51:43 | null | 2016-08-28T07:00:26 |
The president’s aircraft is a symbol of US strength. Peter Conrad examines its history and depictions in film, and what it really tells us about America
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fair-force-one-ultimate-power-trip.json
|
en
| null |
Air Force One: the ultimate power trip
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In the beginning, mythology told stories about events or experiences that would otherwise leave us mystified – how the world was created, what happens after we die. The first myths were mostly optimistic fictions, but our ancestors longed to believe in them: that’s how religion established its hold.
The original myth-makers expected us to take literally God’s fabulations about heaven and hell and to obey his bullying commandments. Today, less credulous, we think religion itself is a myth, by which we mean a consoling lie. In common usage, “myth” is at best the word we use to refer to amusingly preposterous urban legends – tales about albino alligators in the Manhattan sewers or the Holy Grail’s hiding place under the floor of a Paris shopping mall.
In our society, it is publicists, spin doctors and advertisers who devise the myths. Sometimes the aim is to exalt an imperfect human being: celebrities and even politicians need to possess “charisma”, a word that originally vouched for a believer’s direct contact with a divine source. Myth also invests manufactured objects with a supernatural grace or glory. In the 1950s, Citroën’s DS car came to be known as the Déesse – a goddess of sleek metal and smooth leather, so curvaceously aerodynamic that it seemed, according to Roland Barthes’s description in Mythologies, to have “descended from the sky”, not driven up the highway. Irony is our defence against such sales pitches: we need to pick the myths apart, deciphering their sneaky designs on us.
Can mythbusters like Snopes.com keep up in a post-truth era? Read more
Take the case of Air Force One, the American presidential plane – not to be confused with Air Force 1, which is a Nike trainer, mock-heroically named to ally it with the vertical lift of a jet during takeoff. Or could the plane be mimicking the athletic mystique of the shoe? On its white, shiny fuselage, the proud slogan UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is underlined by a blue stripe, a counterpart to the Nike flash, which pays streamlined homage to the Greek goddess of victory. More than a means of transport, Air Force One is a propaganda tool, and its effectiveness depends on the implied presence of a deity.
So long as the doctrine of American isolation prevailed, the presidency was a desk job, tethered to Washington DC. But when the US acquired global power after 1945, the president took to the air, travelling in a plane that has come to represent the ubiquity and intimidating might of this ultimate empire. Equipped with surveillance systems that eavesdrop on the lowly world it overflies, allegedly able to fire missiles and to withstand a nuclear blast, Air Force One is evidence of dominance. Even if we don’t accept American superiority, we bow down before American immensity: the customised 747 currently in use is as tall as a six-storey building and as long as a football field.
On the ground, the president travels in a black Cadillac nicknamed “the Beast”, ready to repel assailants with rocket-propelled grenades, pump-action shotguns and tear-gas cannon. Soaring aloft, he exchanges a beast for a bird: Air Force One is America with wings, a mechanised version of the beaked, pinioned eagle – a predator that clutches in its claws twin bundles of peacemaking olive branches and spiky, militarised arrows – that appears on the country’s Great Seal.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Barack Obama speaks after touching down in Tel Aviv – his first visit to Israel, 20 March 2013. Photograph: Oliver Weiken/EPA
The first President Bush, who took delivery of the current double-decker Air Force One to replace the humbler 707 he inherited from Ronald Reagan, remarked that it embodies America’s “majesty”. A Freudian slip, surely – republics should be unmajestic and the USA was meant to be the paradise of the common man – but not inaccurate. Air Force One is a triumphal chariot, a steroid-boosted equivalent to the golden coaches and slow-motion Bentleys in which the Queen sedately trundles along. For extra effect, Lyndon Johnson installed a hydraulic “king chair” on board his Air Force One, which enabled him to hover in midair as he harangued the congressmen he invited into his cabin.
Like the country whose head of state it carries, Air Force One is exceptional – and exceptions are always made for it by air-traffic controllers, who suspend other operations to give it instant clearance. The numeral in the plane’s call sign is exclusive, monopolistic, not the inception of a series; it brags of being one of a kind, rather than a first among equals. In fact that solitary integer is misleading: here is the first of the myth’s little fibs. Air Force One has a duplicate that, like the vice-president, is a useful safeguard against mishaps. But to preserve the myth of American primacy, the second plane is never referred to as Air Force Two and whichever of them carries the incumbent becomes Air Force One for the duration.
The ‘nuclear football’ - the deadly briefcase that never leaves the president’s side Read more
George W Bush may be the only president to have used both planes on a single journey. At Thanksgiving in 2003, he flew to Baghdad, where he spent a couple of hours posing for photographs as he dished out portions of festive turkey to the troops who were fighting his war. To ensure that the trip remained secret, he retreated to his ranch in Texas for the holiday, then travelled back to Washington on the first Air Force One – though it couldn’t officially be called that because he was pretending not to be on board: the trip was logged as routine maintenance. The second plane was waiting in a hangar, fuelled and provisioned for the onward flight to Iraq. With a baseball cap as his camouflage, Bush entered it by the back stairs, which no president ever uses. That skulking between planes was an odd manoeuvre, very unlike his customary strutting. Bush was playing hide and seek with his twin Air Force Ones, and duplication hints at duplicity, a cultivation of double meanings that dodges, as myth always does, between truth and falsehood.
The plane borrows America’s attributes – its size, its might, its technological supremacy – but can any president dare borrow those attributes from the plane? Although Americans proverbially describe their nation’s CEO as “the most powerful man in the world”, it’s a hollow boast, since the only way of making that power manifest is by opening the suitcase of nuclear codes chained to the arm of the military aide who accompanies the president everywhere. Power is meaningless unless it’s displayed, enacted: hence Vladimir Putin’s bare-chested preening or his sessions of bone-crushing judo. American presidents sometimes jog to demonstrate fitness, though Jimmy Carter once embarrassingly keeled over while out for a run. A president’s best chance of personifying confident, aerobic America is in bounding energetically down the stairs of Air Force One. Yet the height of those stairs and their steep pitch are reminders that the presidency is a heady, hubristic office, undermined by pitfalls. In 1975 in rainy Salzburg the notoriously clumsy Gerald Ford slipped on the wet bottom step as he deplaned and tumbled on to the tarmac, forcing his wife to shield him with an umbrella as an official tugged him upright.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Ford slips as he exits Air Force One, 1975. Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images
For once avoiding risks, when Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination last year he relied on a gilded escalator in his New York headquarters to deposit him in the lobby where the photographers were gathered. Stairs require effort, which may be unavailing or self-defeating; an escalator – or so Trump hoped – allowed him to waft down smoothly from on high like a golden-maned angel of deliverance.
In one respect, America’s aeronautical myth has to wheedle its way around a flagrant contradiction: Air Force One carries the commander-in-chief, but he is not in command of the plane. When Barack Obama came on board for the first time, he shook the hand of the pilot and complimented him for looking the part, “like Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff”. In the film of Tom Wolfe’s book about Nasa’s astronauts, Shepard as Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier while remaining laconic, nonchalant, metaphorically down to earth. Actually, the pilot who flies Air Force One is nicknamed Top Gun during his tenure in the cockpit; it’s lucky that Obama was greeted by a laidback Shepard lookalike rather than a clone of Tom Cruise, who played the hepped-up hotshot naval aviator known as Maverick in Tony Scott’s film Top Gun.
Obama’s charmingly deferential remark joked about his own unfitness – physically at least – for the office. Americans want their head of state to be both a warlord and a saviour and these impossible expectations have turned the presidency into a myth – a starring role for an action hero rather than an exhaustingly intricate job for a fixer schooled in the art of compromise.
Trump, when asked last December which president he most admires, did not pay the usual unctuous tribute to Lincoln, Kennedy or Reagan, but said that his role model was James Marshall. He was referring, he explained, to “Harrison Ford on the plane”: in Wolfgang Petersen’s 1997 film Air Force One, Ford plays a president whose name suggests martial prowess as well as anticipating the air marshals who, after 9/11, began to travel on civilian flights, weapons at the ready. Marshall’s backstory alludes to his time piloting combat choppers in Vietnam, when he received the Medal of Honor for valour in battle from one of his predecessors. He is therefore well prepared to beat up or gun down the terrorists from Kazakhstan who take over Air Force One after a summit meeting in Moscow; in an emergency he can even fly the plane himself.
Harrison Ford’s reaction to Trump’s accolade was scornful, sad and a little anxious. “Donald,” he groaned, “it was a movie! It’s not like this in real life – but how would you know?” Undeterred by protests about his infringement of copyright, Trump uses Jerry Goldsmith’s embattled but rousingly brassy music from the film to underscore his campaign appearances, and when he arrived in Cleveland for the Republican convention in July he was greeted by the fanfares that accompany Ford’s gung-ho bouts of fisticuffs with the hijackers. All he did was step out of his name-tagged helicopter, but Goldsmith’s theme lent that act an air of unearned grandiosity.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Clintons listen to a midair briefing in 1996. Photograph: Robert Mcneely/AP
Trump’s enthusiasm is easy to understand: as Air Force One begins, Marshall plays the kind of president any of us might fancy being, a man for whom the executive branch and its perks are a licence to daydream. Returning to the airport in wintry Moscow, he suggests a whimsical detour on the way home: “Let’s go to Barbados.” Here, in theory, is true power, unhindered by responsibility; the plane is a magic carpet. But once he forfeits control of Air Force One, Marshall is suddenly disempowered. Hiding from the terrorists in the luggage compartment, he finds a mobile phone with which he tries to alert the cabinet to his plight. He has to go through the White House switchboard and when he identifies himself to the woman on duty she refuses to put him through because he sounds like a crackpot fantasist. That, a year ago, is how everyone viewed Trump; real life, we now know, is not quite as reasonable or as immune to delusion as Harrison Ford hoped.
Whatever frenzy or folly it is that impels Trump, his motive can hardly be the desire to survey the world from inside Air Force One. He already has a plane, a secondhand 757 branded with his surname along its fuselage and his cross-country trips in it have made him look prematurely presidential. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, began her campaign in April 2015 with a road trip, a reprise of the mythically intrepid expeditions of the pioneers in their horsedrawn wagons: she travelled from New York to Iowa in a chauffeured and prudently armoured Chevrolet camper, emerging to be photographed at fast-food outlets along the way.
Days after she set out, Obama teased Hillary’s mock-modesty at a dinner for White House correspondents. Reflecting on the economy’s ups and downs, he said: “I have a friend who used to make millions a year. Now she’s living out of a van in Iowa.” But this July he invited Hillary back on to Air Force One to fly with him to an electoral rally in North Carolina. In a tweet, Trump railed against this partisan misuse of the plane and claimed that Hillary’s free trip cost taxpayers half a million dollars. Obama’s gesture indeed had a solemn constitutional significance. Never before had an incumbent offered a ride to a candidate for the succession who wasn’t already the vice-president; it meant, as one commentator pointed out, that Obama was “ready to hand over the keys to Air Force One”. Perhaps that transfer should be part of the ceremony at the inauguration next January.
Guarded by snipers and sniffer dogs in a hangar that is described as a “sanctuary”, debarred to anyone without security clearance, Air Force One is a symptom of the privileged exclusivity that Trump the populist pretends to despise. With his customary shrewdness, he has maintained an advantage by symbolically opening his private jet to all, thanks to a video tour posted on YouTube.
As hostess – a throwback to the days when flight attendants were described that way – he has appointed Amanda Miller, his gatekeeper in the reality show The Apprentice. (She first came to Trump’s attention as a 15-year-old waitress at one of his golf clubs and after she graduated from college with a degree in fashion merchandising he hired her as a corporate marketer.) With one hand propped on her hip like a starlet posing on a red carpet, Miller purringly extols the plane’s luxuries: seat belts plated in 24-carat gold, head rests on which the Trump family’s spurious crest is embroidered, silk-clad walls for the boss’s bedroom, Ultrasuede ceiling panels, mahogany cabinets, a shower cubicle. We are supposed to slaver enviously at this ostentation; if we don’t, we condemn ourselves as losers.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Watch a guided tour of Donald Trump’s 757.
Trump’s plane does without the emergency medical facilities secreted on Air Force One, which has an operating table discreetly stowed in a wall like a fold-up bed. Instead, Miller recommends a bouncy mohair divan (she pronounces it “dive-in”) in the guest bedroom. To conclude the tour she curls up on a sofa, tosses gobbets of popcorn into her mouth and relaxes with a film from Trump’s on-board cinémathèque of a thousand movies. We hear only noises – a burst of gunfire and the clatter of broken glass: she could be watching Harrison Ford fight back against the hijackers in Petersen’s Air Force One.
That would not be my choice for in-flight entertainment, since the film’s climax is a plane crash. With failing engines, ruptured fuel tanks and a damaged rudder, Air Force One finally lunges into the Caspian Sea and breaks apart; just in time, Ford is safely yanked on to a hovering Hercules turboprop, which, as its pilot beamingly announces while the theme appropriated by Trump blares out one last time, at once becomes Air Force One. This is how the succession works in the supposedly unmonarchical United States: the plane is dead, long live the plane.
Obama, asked in 2012 what he might miss if he weren’t re-elected, said: “The plane is really nice, it really is. It’s a great plane.” Now that he’ll soon lose his right to it, he must dread having to take commercial flights again – a crash landing for the executive ego. Of course there are consolation prizes. When Bill Clinton left the White House, he swapped Air Force One for an aerial pleasure palace, a Boeing 757 owned by his fun-loving billionaire buddy Ron Burkle, a venture capitalist who, according to a recent article in GQ, paid Clinton $15m for his schmoozy aid in recruiting international clients; the in-flight services available on Burkle’s jolly jet prompted the tycoon’s employees to call it “Air Fuck One”. Absolute power, as Trump understands, can mean uninhibited self-indulgence.
As Americans prepare to elect another president, a new presidential plane is on order. Last year, the air force secretary, Deborah Lee James, announced that the Boeing VC25-A currently in use would be replaced by a Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental, which “when fully missionised… will meet the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission, while reflecting the office of the president of the United States of America consistent with the national public interest”.
That sentence, which mixes aggression with evangelism by placing an execution between two missions, packs in all the contradictions of the myth that sustains the country and supplies its Messiah-like sense of purpose. But will a technological upgrade to the plane solve the problems of the presidency, which, thanks to props like Air Force One, has an aura of insuperable power, even though in practice it is limited or even enfeebled by partisan feuds and the rapid disillusionment of an electorate that wants its wishes instantly gratified?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest George W. Bush looks out the window of Air Force One as he flies over New Orleans, Louisiana, surveying the damage left by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
James promised that the new Air Force One would be designed to function as an “alternate airborne White House”. That’s a military precaution, a response to the prospect of nuclear war or some other annihilating catastrophe on the ground. In the first Independence Day film, an extraterrestrial death ray incinerates the White House; Bill Pullman, playing President Whitmore, escapes in Air Force One, suits up as a fighter pilot at a base in Nevada and leads an attack to wipe out the aliens. Reality flails and flounders, unable to match the myth. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, President Bush spent the rest of the day flying to and fro between Florida and Nebraska in a sky that had been emptied of all other traffic. Secure in the “mobile command centre” of Air Force One, he issued no coherent commands, later shiftily explaining that he remained aloft because he didn’t want to give “the bad guys” the satisfaction of killing him. Air Force One keeps the president out of harm’s way, but it also ensures that he remains out of touch. The shining seas and purple mountains celebrated in the patriotic hymn are far below and actual Americans remain invisible.
“The presidential aircraft,” James insisted, “is one of the most visible symbols of the United States at home and abroad.” True, but a plane is an odd or ominous symbol for a country, which surely consists of terrain, not airspace. Thunderous, scarily propulsive, bristling with weaponry, Air Force One encourages effusions of the wrong kind about American greatness; what’s worse is that Petersen’s film has made it an arena for crazed feats of derring-do by a superhero – or, with luck, by a superheroine in a nattily tailored trouser suit. The overlapping of politics and fiction is absurd, but that’s no reason not to find it alarming. The very irrationality of myth makes it irresistible in a time of unease or trauma like the present: we are all at risk of being blown away by the rhetorical jet exhaust that Air Force One leaves behind it.
Peter Conrad’s Mythomania: Tales of Our Times, from Apple to Isis, is published by Thames & Hudson next month. Click here to order a copy for the special price of £15.94
|
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/28/air-force-one-ultimate-power-trip
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/af205cba33979fc588051a498313845b669e568172e27fb645b82bc227745c51.json
|
|
[
"Kevin Mitchell"
] | 2016-08-29T22:52:35 | null | 2016-08-29T21:00:12 |
Lukas Rosol prefers to remember playing Andy Murray in Indian Wells rather than the bust-up in Munich as they prepare for US Open first round
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Flukas-rosol-plays-down-history-andy-murray-us-open.json
|
en
| null |
Lukas Rosol plays down history before meeting Andy Murray in US Open
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Lukas Rosol, as Andy Murray learned one mad afternoon in Munich, has enough attitude for an entire locker room of Tour-hardened veterans. It is instructive that, when asked about his most recent match against the world No2, Rosol chose not to refer to their infamous bust-up last year but to a nondescript match in Indian Wells nearly two and a half years ago.
“It was three sets in the first round,” he said. “Then we play on clay court [in Munich], which is a little bit different … but from the hard court I have good memories against him.”
Did Rosol have anything else to recall from Munich before his return engagement against Murray in the first round of the US Open on Tuesday, he was asked. Like shoulder-bumping Murray on a changeover and hearing the Scot say: “No one likes you on the tour. Everyone hates you”? The Czech’s response was: “You have some other question? I don’t want to answer this.”
Despite this there is much to admire about Rosol’s rough edges. He is the perennial outsider, the lightly regarded obstacle. In 2012, in his third match on grass, the then world No100 played the set of his life – one of the finest sustained bursts of power tennis anyone present could remember – to blow Rafael Nadal off the court and out of Wimbledon. But Rosol did not want to dwell on his Nadal triumph, either.
“That is history already,” said the 31-year-old No82. “I remember the match, yes, but I cannot take something from the match for Tuesday. He was a leftie and [there were] too many different things. I was also four years younger and I was different. Now I am more experienced and Andy is playing a different game.”
As is the way in big-time sport, nosy inquisitors are urged to “move on”, to forget past embarrassments. But Murray and Rosol will always have Munich – just as Murray and Juan Martín del Potro will always have Rome, where an outrageous wind-up by the Argentinian about his opponent’s mother, Judy, inspired the angry Scot to go on to win the match. They, too, patched it up and wrapped each other in a heartfelt embrace at the end of their draining Olympic final in Rio two weeks ago.
“We are good friends, it was something about nothing,” Rosol says about Munich. Murray confirms they spoke about the incident afterwards but he might not be taking tea with the combustible Czech. If Murray gets the job done in three quick rounds, memories of Munich will fade even further into the distance.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/29/lukas-rosol-plays-down-history-andy-murray-us-open
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2f0e1ced159ce44f6e0b0b796a04eae20b1f5bf7f6dd61b2cd8fef8a5ae73f82.json
|
|
[
"Stuart Dredge"
] | 2016-08-26T13:27:11 | null | 2016-06-02T08:46:54 |
From soups and stews to roasts, vegetarian and vegan meals – here are some of the most helpful apps to get you cooking
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Fjun%2F02%2F10-best-cookery-apps-iphone-ipad-android.json
|
en
| null |
10 of the best cookery apps for iPhone, iPad and Android
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The recent rumpus about the BBC’s plans for its recipes websites showed how many of us are turning to digital sources rather than traditional books when cooking. Inevitably, there are apps for that. Lots of them.
Here are 10 of the best cookery apps for Android and iOS, covering various cuisines, themes and age groups/abilities. Prices are correct at the time of writing, and “IAP” refers to in-app purchases – usually for extra bundles of recipes in this case.
Kitchen Stories
Android / iOS (Free)
Kitchen Stories is one of the clearest, easiest-to-use cookery apps available. There’s a strong video element alongside the expected text and photos, with a big database of recipes that you can browse by theme and filter by country. New recipes are added regularly, making it worth checking back every week to see what’s new.
Yummly Recipes
Android / iOS / Windows Phone (Free)
This isn’t a digital cookbook, but rather a cookery search engine wrapped in an app. You can use it to search for recipes on a range of websites, filtering by cuisine, cooking time, allergies and other queries to pinpoint what you’re looking for. The app also offers personalised recommendations, and has one of the best shopping-list features too.
Green Kitchen
iOS (£3.99 + IAP)
Green Kitchen was one of my most-used apps when I was vegetarian, and even since falling off the wagon, I still turn to it regularly. There’s a good variety of veggie recipes (including some vegan and gluten-free options), clear instructions and photos, and an excellent cooking-timer feature that stops you from panicking at any given step.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Forks Over Knives.
Forks Over Knives
Android / iOS (£3.99)
Already a popular film about healthier eating, Forks Over Knives also makes an impressive app. It has more than 200 recipes, with an emphasis on “whole-food, plant-based” meals that ties in to the film’s theme. This is one of the best apps for proving that healthier eating doesn’t mean boring meals.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fit Men Cook.
Fit Men Cook
iOS (£2.49 + IAP)
“Our bodies are built in the kitchen, sculpted in the gym” is the slogan for this website and app, which makes it sound like something for Men’s Health cover models only. Actually, this has some good meal ideas, and helpfully will arrange them into eating plans to tie in with whatever exercise you’re doing.
Deliciously Ella
Android / iOS (£2.99)
Another “natural, healthy” option here, with a range of meals and desserts that give gluten and refined sugars – not to mention meat – the boot. All the recipes come with clear instructions and photos, with some handy detox eating plans thrown in for anyone who’s trying to remind their body that it’s supposed to be a temple.
Youmiam
Android / iOS (Free)
Youmiam is one of the best cookery apps putting a social spin on your kitchen activities, with a Pinterest-style system of following other users to get a feed of new recipe ideas whenever you open the app. Like Yummly, its recommendations improve the more you use it, plus you can contribute your own for other people to try.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Great British Chefs Kids HD.
Great British Chefs Kids HD
iOS (Free)
If my children had their way, every meal would consist of sausages, chips and Nerds sweets. If your kids are more adventurous, though, try them with some of the recipes in this app. Affiliated with Tesco, it wants to get parents cooking with their children, with some fun ideas to whet young diners’ appetites. The main Great British Chefs app is also recommended for adults.
Tastemade
Android / iOS (Free)
Tastemade is one of the YouTube multi-channel networks (MCNs) with a focus on food and cooking. This app is a good way to dig in to its archives of how-to videos, as well as following new content. Even when you’re not looking for a recipe, Tastemade’s TV-style cookery and lifestyle shows may spark some ideas.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Great British Bake Off.
The Great British Bake Off: Step by Step Better Baking
iOS (Free + IAP)
Finally, Britain’s current TV-cookery crush has its own app, setting its sights on the kind of novice bakers who’d never be allowed near the Great British Bake Off tent. This has some good free recipes to start you off with cakes, but most of its content – biscuits and breads included – comes in packs acquired as 79p in-app purchases.
That’s our selection: now share your thoughts. If you’ve used any of the apps above, what did you think of them? If you have other favourites that aren’t included here, recommend them. The comments section is open for your views.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/02/10-best-cookery-apps-iphone-ipad-android
|
en
| 2016-06-02T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0f46c260152aaf9eb467e69f6189f44be4a6dd0cb70d6e8068170cfab72a3833.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:18:53 | null | 2016-08-25T10:47:59 |
The former Fifa president Sepp Blatter said he would accept the verdict of his appeal against his six-year ban from football as he arrived for the hearing on Thursday
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fsepp-blatter-cas-appeal-against-ban.json
|
en
| null |
Sepp Blatter says he will accept Cas verdict of appeal hearing against ban
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The former Fifa president Sepp Blatter said he would accept the verdict of his appeal against his six-year ban from football as he arrived for the hearing on Thursday.
The disgraced former president appeared before sport’s highest tribunal, the court of arbitration for sport, to appeal against his ban. The 80-year-old, who led the game’s world global governing body for 17 years until he resigned in June last year, was banned from all football-related activity last December along with the then Uefa president, Michel Platini.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino cleared of possible ethics violations Read more
“My name wouldn’t be Sepp Blatter if I didn’t have faith, if I wasn’t optimistic,” he told reporters as he arrived for the hearing. “I will accept the verdict because, in football, we learn to win, this is easy, but we also learn to lose, but this is not good, I wouldn’t want to lose.”
The bans were imposed for ethics violations related to a payment of two million Swiss francs that Fifa made to Platini with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.
“I’m sure at the end … that the panel will understand that the payment made to Platini was really a debt that we [owed] him and this is a principle, if you have debts, you pay them,” Blatter said.
Platini also appeared for the closed-door hearing. “I come, for the umpteenth time, to tell the truth,” he said before the hearing.
Both men, who have denied wrongdoing, were initially banned for eight years, later reduced to six by Fifa’s appeals committee. Platini has already taken his case to Cas, which rejected his appeal but reduced his ban to four years. Cas has not said when its final decision on Blatter’s appeal will be announced.
Blatter resigned in the midst of a Fifa corruption crisis only four days into his fifth term. Several dozen football officials, including former Fifa executive committee members, and entities were indicted in the United States on corruption-related charges last year.
Switzerland, for its part, opened a criminal investigation into the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/25/sepp-blatter-cas-appeal-against-ban
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/19d755b9339cbc1285c40a7e1b95207b0d3a28133d94c59ac4b7e4a884d91777.json
|
|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-27T16:51:19 | null | 2016-08-27T15:33:32 |
A mass state funeral is held in Ascoli Piceno, Italy on Saturday as the number of people killed in an earthquake which hit the region on Wednesday reaches 290
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fmass-funeral-held-italy-after-deadly-earthquake-video.json
|
en
| null |
Mass funeral held in Italy after deadly earthquake - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A mass state funeral is held in Ascoli Piceno, Italy on Saturday as the number of people killed in an earthquake which hit the region on Wednesday reaches 290. 35 coffins line the room as the names of the victims are read out, with hundreds of mourners in attendance and many more listening on loudspeakers outside. The 6.2 magnitude quake struck in the middle of the night and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/27/mass-funeral-held-italy-after-deadly-earthquake-video
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4a26e7c8fc105ce9eb3b5f56181b9e5d59ba0f320899fac62a265fc508519012.json
|
|
[
"Bonnie Malkin"
] | 2016-08-31T00:50:19 | null | 2016-08-30T23:47:27 |
Sara Connor, from Byron Bay, and David Taylor, who are suspects in the murder of Wayan Sudarsa, appeared on Kuta beach in prison outfits
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fsara-connor-david-taylor-british-australian-couple-reconstruct-murder-bali-policeman-beach.json
|
en
| null |
British and Australian suspects reconstruct death of Bali policeman on tourist beach
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A British and Australian couple accused in the killing of a policeman in Bali have taken part in a reconstruction at Kuta beach.
Sara Connor, from Byron Bay, and David Taylor, both dressed in orange prison outfits bearing the words “Denpasar police detainee”, arrived in two separate small armoured personnel carriers at about 5am escorted by dozens of police.
Briton accused of killing Bali police officer 'hit him with binoculars' Read more
Signs with their names on them were hung around their necks. It was the first time the couple had seen each other in person since their arrest on 18 August.
Taylor and Connor have been formally named suspects over the death of policeman Wayan Sudarsa and face charges including unpremeditated murder and assault. Both could each face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of murder.
As part of the reconstruction, the pair embraced and Taylor kissed Connor on the forehead as they stood by the edge of the water.
Later, Taylor was seen leaning down over the figure of a man representing Sudarsa and holding a broken beer bottle to his head.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sara Connor and David Taylor stand on Kuta beach as a police officer posing as policeman Wayan Sudarsa lies behind of them. Photograph: Lauren Farrow/AAP
At one point in the reconstruction, which was directed by police shouting through a megaphone, Taylor mimed how he had frisked Sudarsa.
Among the 40 “scenes” acted out by the pair was an alleged confrontation between Sudarsa and Taylor over Connor’s lost wallet. The men later fell onto the sand, Taylor kneeling over the top of Sudarsa.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Australian woman Sara Connor and her British boyfriend take part in a reconstruction of the death of policeman Wayan Sudarsa. Photograph: Roni Bintang/AAP
As if she was standing in the wings of a play, Connor was then brought into the scene, to re-enact how she tried to separate the pair.
The policeman playing Sudarsa mimed biting her on the thigh as she knelt next to him. Photographers and cameramen called from the sidelines asking police to move so they could get a clear shot. As the sun rose, the alleged confrontation between the pair escalated in eerie step by step silence.
“David fell and became involved in a fight with the victim,” a police officer directed as Taylor lay quietly on his back. “Victim and David hitting each other and struggling.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest British man David Taylor during the re-enactment on Kuta beach. Photograph: Roni Bintang/AAP
“David smashed the bottle to the back of victim’s head until it shattered.”
Ketut Arsini, Sudarsa’s wife, came to the beach but did not say anything and left quickly.
Crime reconstructions are regularly staged as part of police investigations in Indonesia.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sara Connor and David Taylor walk together during the reconstruction. Photograph: Roni Bintang/AAP
Denpasar police’s general crime unit chief, Reinhard Habonaran Nainggolan, said the reconstruction would be conducted in three locations – the beach, the Kubu Kauh Beach Inn where the couple stayed on the night, and at Jimbaran, where the couple is alleged to have burned their bloody clothes after the incident.
Sudarsa’s body was found in the early hours of 16 August on Kuta beach, a popular tourist spot in southern Bali. Taylor and Connor were arrested two days later.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this story
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/sara-connor-david-taylor-british-australian-couple-reconstruct-murder-bali-policeman-beach
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d2fce4237ddcc1304b8d16badf43c257d88f30c31f7fcdf0c12c2f247de173c0.json
|
|
[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-27T02:51:11 | null | 2016-08-27T02:25:47 |
Report by chief health officer finds incorrect installation of medical gas pipes and flawed testing led to death
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Faustralia-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fbaby-death-report-finds-series-of-tragic-errors-caused-gas-mix-up-at-sydney-hospital.json
|
en
| null |
Baby death: report finds 'series of tragic errors' caused gas mix-up at Sydney hospital
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The final report into a fatal oxygen mix-up at a western Sydney hospital has found “a series of tragic errors” led to one boy’s death and a baby girl’s serious injury.
The baby boy died and a newborn girl suffered suspected brain damage after they were mistakenly given nitrous oxide or “laughing gas” instead of oxygen at Bankstown-Lidcombe hospital in June and July this year.
Baby dies and another critical after being given nitrous oxide at Sydney hospital Read more
A report by the New South Wales chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, released on Saturday, found the incorrect installation of medical gas pipes and flawed testing and commissioning of the pipes led to the two cases.
“This was a catastrophic error and, on behalf of NSW Health, I apologise unreservedly to both families,” Chant told reporters on Saturday.
According to a statement released by NSW Health on Friday, the general manager of the hospital has been suspended following investigations.
It is the second suspension announced since, with an engineer at the hospital suspended earlier this month.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/27/baby-death-report-finds-series-of-tragic-errors-caused-gas-mix-up-at-sydney-hospital
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/76e087417e235f9a6313e15d2ee636e8225e0a6f01e21509b1e68d8174b52aab.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Sport"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:33 | null | 2016-08-11T09:30:34 |
This week’s roundup also features fan impersonations, new-season kits, table tennis reinvented, the Oval celebrated, injury-time goals and some major misses
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F11%2Fclassic-youtube-sports-clips-the-premier-league-pre-season-and-weightlifting-dance-of-joy.json
|
en
| null |
How Premier League clubs spent their summers, plus weightlifting's jig of joy
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
1) Welcome back then, the Premier League, and if the Olympic Games are not proving enough of a distraction and the next few days are just too long to wait, here’s a spot of summer fun from all 20 teams: Arsenal’s dilemma and last season’s story; Eddie Howe on Bournemouth’s pre-season and the Cherries’ top five wins from last season; Burnley go white-water rafting to Firestarter and Andre Gray curls one into the corner against Rangers in a warm-up; Chelsea in America and N’Golo Kanté’s first interview; Palace’s Pards on the new captaincy and fans at last season’s FA Cup final; Everton’s Ramiro Funes Mori models the new kit; Mike Phelan on Hull’s final pre-season game and their top five celebrations from last season; Leicester meet their fans in Los Angeles and Claudio Ranieri reviews his best moments for the faithful; Getting to know Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp and the manager explains going to see Celine Dion in Las Vegas to a group of kids in the US; John Stones’ first day at Manchester City and Pep’s taxi; Manchester United’s force awakens, all of their goals on the way to last season’s FA Cup final and the game itself; Middlesborough in Marbella and Gastón Ramírez’s goal of the season; Southampton’s Claude Puel reflects on his final pre-season win against Athletic Bilbao and their alternative awards for last season; Mark Hughes on Stoke’s pre-season finale with Hamburger SV and the best moments from last season; Sunderland’s pre-season goals and the team in speedos; Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson’s greatest hits and their final pre-season match against Rennes at the Liberty Stadium; Tottenham players on the green screen and outtakes from last season; Watford’s Allan Nyom says his side is ready to fight and five of the best bits of skill from last season; West Brom go bike riding in Austria and new owner Guochuan Lai discusses the future of the club; and finally, welcome to West Ham’s new home and the Hammers shoot hoops.
2) Looking at the Premier League as a whole, here’s the Football Republic’s roundup of every Premier League fan in 90 seconds – short, sweet and seems pretty much spot on, US former player Heath Pearce rates this season’s kits in a not at all annoying fashion while Star Sports previews it by of all things, well, washing the new kits.
3) Classic YouTube’s cast-iron, solid-gold, guaranteed to make you smile, clip of the week: weightlifter David Katoatau.
4) Coming from behind and doing it at the death: Apoel Nicosia of Cyprus defied the odds to turn a 2-1 deficit from the first leg against Norway’s Rosenberg (the league leaders and domestic champions) into a remarkable victory that put them through to the play-off round of the Champions League. It was nil-nil as the game entered stoppage time but the last minutes saw Giannis Gianniotas, Vander and Tomas De Vincenti stun the Norwegians.
5) As England’s final Test with Pakistan at The Kia Oval gets underway here’s some lovely footage of the ground courtesy of the ECB; the Fight For The Ashes from 1953; the wonderfully titled Curves At The Oval from 1963 – “WG Grace wouldn’t have believed it” – as Australia’s women visit, both from Pathé and from 1987, Javed Miandad’s huge 260 for Pakistan, part of his side’s 708 (including tons for Saleem Malik and the captain, Imran Khan) from 220.3 overs. The match was drawn, enough for Pakistan to claim their first series win in England, 1-0.
6) A tricky track at the best of times, Spa-Francorchamps turned into an ice rink at this year’s 24 hour race, with full race highlights here.
1) Bats? We don’t need no stinking bats. Or a ping pong ball either, here is table tennis played purely with the head and a football. Stick to the end for some hell-yeah celebrations that seem rather at odds with the pantomime foolishness of the pursuit.
2) Look away now Manchester City fans as new signing Gabriel Jesus misses an absolute sitter during Brazil’s 0-0 draw with South Africa at the Olympic Games.
3) And one for Aberdeen fans to avoid as keeper Joe Lewis swings and misses during their defeat to Maribor.
Spotters’ badges: Chestnut52, TheCedarRoom.
Guardian YouTube football channel
Do subscribe, if you fancy
Guardian YouTube sport channel
Do subscribe, if you fancy
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/11/classic-youtube-sports-clips-the-premier-league-pre-season-and-weightlifting-dance-of-joy
|
en
| 2016-08-11T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/789029d4b7daf96d943b410c51bbe676db18c23dc874392af93e6b137b337333.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-31T12:59:38 | null | 2016-08-31T11:35:20 |
Russian scientists think they may have received a signal from a star 94.4 light years from Earth. Other expert alien-spotters have moved quickly to investigate
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Ftruth-about-hd164595-solar-flare-radio-waves-et-calling.json
|
en
| null |
Solar flare, radio waves or ET calling - what’s the truth about HD164595?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Name: HD164595.
Age: 4.5 billion years, give or take.
Appearance: Not visible to the naked eye.
Sounds like you don’t know too much about it. That’s because it hasn’t been up to much until now.
What exactly are we talking about? A sun-sized star 94.4 light years from Earth, in the constellation of Hercules.
How interesting can it be if no one has bothered to give it a proper name? Well, it has an apparent magnitude of 7.075, a similar mass and temperature to our own sun, and a Neptune-sized planet, HD164595 b, in its orbit.
Whoop de doo. And someone from out that way may be trying to get in touch.
What are you talking about? In May 2015, a strong radio signal coming from the vicinity of HD164595 was detected at the Ratan-600 observatory in Russia.
Why are we only hearing about it now? Because it is due to be made public in a forthcoming presentation, leading to speculation that the signal could be coming from a transmitter built by a Type I civilisation.
You mean ET phoned from home? Maybe.
Really? No.
Stop toying with me! While it is conceivable the signal was sent by aliens, scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) remain sceptical.
That’s their job, I suppose. No one has been able to replicate the findings so far, even though many of the world’s telescopes have been trained on the vicinity in the last few days.
Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. No, but a one-off signal is more consistent with something such as a stellar flare, or radio interference here on Earth.
You just have to believe, otherwise ET won’t call back. And even if aliens were pointing the signal directly at us, the transmitting power required would equal the total energy consumption of all humankind.
So it’s possible. But there is no reason to think they even know we’re here.
They can see our TV! They’ll be wanting Seinfeld explained to them! HD164595 is 94 light years away. None of our TV has reached there yet.
Thanks for ruining this for me. Any time.
Do say: “HELLO FROM PLANET EARTH. NO NEED TO REPLY IF YOU’RE SLIMY.”
Don’t say: “SPOILER ALERT: CHANDLER AND MONICA EVENTUALLY GET IT TOGETHER.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/31/truth-about-hd164595-solar-flare-radio-waves-et-calling
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/42aae666a3e894f8817cf577b90bebd039d00343701bf9342dc09e5da9818716.json
|
|
[
"Adam Lechmere"
] | 2016-08-28T02:54:55 | null | 2016-08-20T23:04:00 |
Britain’s award-winning sparkling wines are no longer seen as a novelty and exporters have now set their sights on conquering America
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F20%2Fenglish-wines-champagne-fizz-usa.json
|
en
| null |
English wines plan to put some fizz into the US
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It captured the hearts of the French some time ago, but now English sparkling wine is preparing for its next major breakthrough – America.
This week the first full container of English wine will be shipped to the US – 5,000 bottles from four different producers, including some of the best-known names in English wine.
The wines, from Digby Fine English, Hush Heath Estate, Bolney Wine Estate and Camel Valley, are produced in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and Cornwall. All are award-winning sparkling wines made in the traditional method, and are destined for nine states including New York, Pennsylvania, Montana and Massachusetts, as well as the capital, Washington DC.
For the past five years English wine has been on an unstoppable upward curve. Investment in equipment and expertise, together with a gradual increase in global temperatures, means Britain’s sparkling wines – 90% of which are made with chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, the three grapes used to make champagne – rival the world’s best fizz.
Such is the suitability of the chalky soils of southern England that two champagne houses, Taittinger and Vranken-Pommery, have invested millions in setting up operations here. One owner of a major vineyard said he had turned down an offer from another champagne house of “more than €6m” for his business. America has been slower to catch on, but word is spreading beyond New York, where any sommelier who reckons to have their finger on the pulse will know about English wine. “It’s no longer a novelty. It’s now known there are great sparkling wines coming out of England,” said Liz Willette of New York importer Grand Cru Selections. In Washington DC another importer, Siema, is busily taking orders for cases of Ridgeview, one of the best-known English wines. “Interest is overwhelming,” said the company’s Andrew Stover.
The latest batch of exporters are concentrating on the smartest retailers and restaurants. “It’s a huge deal for us. This is a world-class product and it deserves its place on all the great wine lists,” said Trevor Clough, head blender at Digby Fine English. Digby’s 2010 Vintage Reserve Brut sells for £39.99 in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols and will cost around $75 in the US.
“That’s not expensive,” said Clough.
“This wine stands up to any competition thrown at it. Our wines are as good as champagnes costing twice as much. American connoisseurs understand that.” The British Bottle Company, which is making the shipment, has navigated the near-impenetrable regulations of the US market to get the bottles shipped out. In March the government announced its pledge to achieve a tenfold increase in English wine exports by 2020. “The US is a clear priority market for exports and this deal is a significant milestone,” said Julia Trustram Eve of English Wine Producers, the marketing arm of the UK wine industry.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/20/english-wines-champagne-fizz-usa
|
en
| 2016-08-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/aa5d35d447e1946b5e7a823f6e0ccd22631fdd42b9474381aac5eadc7082dcf4.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:21:04 | null | 2016-08-23T11:49:12 |
The Mbera refugee camp is hosting rising numbers of refugees, despite a peace deal. Plus, how a newspaper in northern India is breaking taboos
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fglobal-development%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fmalian-refugees-in-mauritania-and-indias-all-woman-newspaper.json
|
en
| null |
Malian refugees in Mauritania, and India's all-woman newspaper
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Alex Duval Smith reports from the Mbera refugee camp in south-east Mauritania, which is host to rising numbers of people fleeing conflict in central Mali. Even though armed groups have agreed a peace deal with the government in Bamako, there are about 42,000 people in the camp, mainly Tuareg and Arab refugees, with their numbers bolstered by the recent arrival of more than 500 Fulani nomads. Mali and Mauritania both have high rates of child marriage, but NGOs working at the camp are trying to provide education and training opportunities to dissuade both child marriage and young men from joining armed groups.
Khabar Lahariya is an Indian newspaper that has come a long way: from fortnightly publications hand-delivered around villages, its reportage now includes video and WhatsApp updates. But what makes the publication special is the way it is breaking gender and caste taboos. The newspaper is the first and only paper in India staffed, edited and run entirely by women, mostly from low-caste, rural backgrounds. We’ve also had reports from India in the past two weeks on how little is being done to help Indians displaced by the Maoist insurgency, and on schools in Delhi that are opening up a safe space for children to speak up about sexual abuse.
Elsewhere on the site
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Geraldine Jones, headteacher at the Oscar Romero school for deaf children in Tubmanburg, Liberia. Photograph: Kate Holt
‘My job is to make children hopeful’: inside Liberia’s deaf school
Conakry hairdressers dispense cut-and-dried contraceptive advice
Peruvian women protest against tide of murder and sexual crime
As the mercury soars, fear grows over ‘air-con effect’
Kenya’s Ogiek people face ‘colonial approach to conservation’
Iraqi children pay high health cost of war-induced air pollution
Cambodia proves fertile ground for foreign surrogacy
Opinion
Kevin Hyland: Britain must address sex trafficking from Nigeria to Europe
Jimmy Smith: Veganism is not the key to sustainable development
Multimedia
Olympians find fetching water in Uganda far from child’s play – in pictures
Students Speak
Is peace a prerequisite for development? Why are the least peaceful countries often among the poorest? What’s the link between peace and progress? We want your views. Submit a response of 250 words or fewer, and we’ll publish the best ones.
Book extracts
In an extract from South Sudan: The Untold Story from Independence to Civil War, Hilde F Johnson, former head of the UN there, shares how the world’s newest nation descended into war in December 2013.
In Today We Drop Bombs, Tomorrow We Build Bridges, Peter Gill laments aid agencies’ waning independence and the dangers staff face.
What you said
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A picture from February 2012 showing Bahr El Ghazal province, northern Chad, in the ecologically fragile Sahel region. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer
Jimmy Smith’s repudiation of the vegan lifestyle attracted hundreds of comments. VashtiGwynn wrote:
There are marginal lands where crop production isn’t possible (uplands, deserts, wetlands, forests) but there is a very strong argument for allowing these to revert to a natural state, rather than decimating their biodiversity by crowding them with livestock. I doubt the assertion that the Sahel is better off lightly farmed. Farming and scrub-clearing has been one of the primary causes of ever-spreading desertification and sub-Saharan countries increasingly face recurrent crop failures … This sort of subsistence farming is therefore manifestly unsustainable, and should not be romanticised as ‘natural’ or ‘pastoral’.
Highlight from the blogosphere
The International Solidarity Mission has been investigating how the Jalaur Mega dam in the Philippines threatens to displace indigenous people in Panay island. Writing for Global Voices, Karlo Mikhail Mongaya, who lives on the island, writes that local people are afraid that the dam will cause flooding and landslides as well as the drowning not only of their homes and villages, but also of their agricultural lands and cultural heritage, as six burial grounds and sacred sites would be destroyed.
Farmers tackling climate change event
Join Guardian sustainable business for a seminar on 21 September to discuss how to support the developing world’s farmers, from Colombia to Ivory Coast, and help end rural poverty.
And finally …
Poverty matters will return in two weeks with another roundup of the latest news and comment. In the meantime, keep up to date on the Global development website. Follow @gdndevelopment and @LizFordGuardian on Twitter, and join Guardian Global development on Facebook.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/23/malian-refugees-in-mauritania-and-indias-all-woman-newspaper
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ca8390760b1bb3b3ae2af5113bd3e973b50406ef6c9e1942221800885a470745.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Staff"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:30 | null | 2016-08-27T18:36:31 |
There were 435 officer-involved shootings in city from 2010 through 2015;findings show about four out of every five people shot were black males
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fchicago-police-shootings-deaths-tracking-data.json
|
en
| null |
Chicago police shootings: data reveals 92 deaths and 2,623 bullets fired
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
After threatening to sue the city’s police department, the Chicago Tribune has obtained official data tracking every time an officer has opened fire in the city over the past six years. The vast majority of those shot, the newspaper found, were black men or boys.
Dwyane Wade: cousin of NBA star shot dead while pushing baby in stroller Read more
According to the data, there were 435 police shootings in Chicago from 2010 through 2015, in which officers killed 92 people and wounded 170. In all, officers fired 2,623 bullets.
“While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention,” the paper wrote, “they occurred with such brutal regularity – and with scant information provided by police – that most have escaped public scrutiny.”
The newspaper’s findings showed that about four out of every five people shot were African American males. It also found that about half of the officers involved were African American or Hispanic and most had years of experience. Of 520 officers who fired their weapons, the paper found, more than 60 did so in more than one incident.
Most of the police shootings took place in South and West Side neighborhoods beset by gang violence and poverty. At least one of every five shootings involved plainclothes tactical officers charged with taking on gangs, the newspaper found.
Dean Angelo Sr, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, told the Tribune: “When you look at the map, 80% of narcotics arrests, gun arrests and gang arrests happen in these poor areas. Where you’ve got dope, you’ve got guns. It’s not about ethnicity – it’s about criminal involvement.”
He also said: “As a police officer, you don’t wait for the shot to come in your direction. You might not get a chance to return fire.”
A community activist, Charles Jenkins, told the Tribune he believes the race of those shot influences the investigations into the shootings.
“It’s easier to believe, because they’re black, that an officer was in fear of their life and get[s] off,” he said.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive Read more
Police shootings in Chicago have caused controversy and protest, leading to pressure on the Democratic mayor, former Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Investigations have led to reform, including major changes to the department and various oversight bodies, the creation of an online database of police misconduct, and the firing of police superintendent Garry McCarthy.
Prominent cases have included the deaths of Laquan McDonald, a black teen who was shot 16 times by an officer in 2014, and Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old who was unarmed when an officer shot him in the back in July.
Video of the Laquan McDonald shooting, released upon a judge’s order in November, contradicted officers’ accounts that the teen lunged at them threateningly with a knife. The officer who fired those shots has been charged with first-degree murder.
The Tribune’s review of the police data also found that the number of Chicago police shootings has declined since 2010, from more than 100 in 2011 to 44 last year.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/27/chicago-police-shootings-deaths-tracking-data
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/477b328946f0852452ba1f8124fdbabb79fa0cc08682ea6dd0fc61446d7ea704.json
|
|
[
"Lucy Jolin"
] | 2016-08-29T08:55:07 | null | 2016-08-29T07:55:50 |
They can add more value and be easier to mould than experienced employees, say business owners – but be prepared to put in the time and resources
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsmall-business-network%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fschools-out-gcse-results-hire-apprentice-business.json
|
en
| null |
School's out, GCSE results are in, now's the time to hire an apprentice
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
With GCSE results released last Thursday, school-leavers are gearing up for their next stage of training or education. In the past two years, a growing number have pursued apprenticeships – in the academic year 2014-2015, the number of under 19s starting an apprenticeship increased by 5.1% on the previous year. And in 2013-2014 the number increased by 4.6%.
But just less than a quarter of small and medium-sized firms have an apprentice, so what’s putting them off? Potential costs and not enough clarity, says a recent report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). There are around a million apprentices in the UK’s small businesses and there is potential to double that,but only if the government puts the right system and incentives in place, says the report.
New developments are encouraging, says Annie Peate, policy adviser in education and skills at the FSB and author of the report. A day after it was published, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced new initiatives. Two of the FSB’s recommendations – making apprenticeships more cost-effective for small businesses, and making information about apprenticeships more accessible – have been addressed.
Small businesses with under 50 employees who take on a 16- to 18-year-old as an apprentice will now pay nothing towards the costs of their training, and will be given a cash incentive of £1,000 per apprentice. The government will also create an apprenticeship investment calculator for its apprenticeship website, allowing small businesses to understand what the potential costs, and benefits, might be.
‘Public or state, the point is the same’: why schools should teach business Read more
But there is still plenty to be done to get the message out. Take the apprenticeship levy, a significant strand of the government’s new approach to apprenticeships funding. From spring 2017, business in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with earnings of more than £3m will pay 0.5% of their payroll total minus a £15,000 allowance towards apprenticeship funding. So a business with earnings of £5m would initially owe £25,000 (0.5% of £5m), but with the £15,000 levy applied, its contribution would be £10,000. Very few small businesses are likely to be affected by it, says Peate, but many, incorrectly, think they will.
The FSB wants to see far more practical advice on apprenticeships, tailored to the needs of small businesses and based around their recommendations and experience. To that end, they are proposing that the government convene a panel of small businesses – the FSB 100 – to review and consult on apprenticeship policy.
Peate says: “In particular, small businesses said the government’s apprenticeships website didn’t really speak to them. They want almost a step-by-step guide. The message that came through from the respondees in our report was that they understand the business benefits, but they need to know how it all works and, crucially, where they start – because once they’ve switched off [from the idea of getting an apprentice], it’s very difficult to get them back.”
Those who have already taken on apprentices say that looking beyond graduates can have huge benefits. “It’s been a really positive step for us,” says Hugh Wade-Jones, founding partner of mortgage broker Enness, which takes on around three to four apprentices per year. Not all are school leavers – one particularly successful former apprentice is ex-army.
“Initially we recruited from within the industry but we found that people had bad habits [such as poor interactions with clients or poor presentation skills] and weren’t trained to a satisfactory level,” Wade-Jones says. “It was very difficult to get people to adapt, particularly if they had been in a large bank or organisation. [Apprenticeships have] given us access to individuals that we wouldn’t have found within the industry. Now we have people who are Enness people, rather than the guys who have done the rounds at three or four different companies.”
There are costs involved, certainly. “The biggest cost is having the infrastructure and setting up the learning culture,” says Simon Conington, managing director of BPS World, one of the first recruitment firms to offer apprenticeships.
Five ways you can inspire budding entrepreneurs Read more
“If you have brought an apprentice in and haven’t built a robust programme, and you don’t thoroughly monitor it, you are setting those people up to fail. Yes, there is a wage cost, and the fact that they are probably not going to contribute [significantly] for at least six months. But we’ve broken down the programme into stages around what apprentices can do, so they do start contributing pretty quickly.”
And taking on an apprentice is not without its challenges. Simon Schnieders founded SEO company Blue Array a year ago. Of the six employees, three are apprentices – the most recent started in the last month. “It can be difficult finding the right candidate, and managing your own expectations,” he says. “Apprentices may have some basic building blocks, such as being able to do basic word processing and Excel. But that’s probably all you are going to get. An apprentice is going to need support from you throughout. But the rewards are huge.”
Tom Pool, 20, is proof of that. He was Schnieders’ first apprentice. After leaving school following his GCSEs, Pool decided A-levels were not for him, and completed a level three NVQ in engineering before joining Blue Array six months ago. “I really wanted to join my friends at university,” he says. “However, after working out the costs, it became apparent that I would be taking on at least £50,000 worth of debt.
“My experience has been incredible. I’ve met many interesting people and feel valued as a part of the team. The variation keeps the business exciting and I actually enjoy coming into work every day.”
So how can small business make apprentices work? A close partnership with the training provider, and carefully supervising the apprentice, says Petra Wilton, director of strategy and external affairs at the Chartered Management Institute. She adds that businesses need to give the training provider regular feedback on the apprentice’s performance.
Having an apprentice is not, she says, a quick win. “There can be a downside in terms of the initial investment in time to understand what’s right for your business. You need to be aware of the management time, which is needed to support an apprentice, and you do need to commit resources to support them. But that’s generally hugely outweighed by the benefit. In the medium and longer term, apprentices can add real value back to the business.”
Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2016/aug/29/schools-out-gcse-results-hire-apprentice-business
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/870c609a7b1a10de6696fcd3edca7a185e95ce92e61c5b930861eabe6595e6c6.json
|
|
[
"Observer Sport"
] | 2016-08-27T22:51:31 | null | 2016-08-27T22:19:05 |
Also featuring: Colour clash at Watford v Arsenal; East Stirlingshire’s game of two halves and a fishy League One fixture
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fsaturday-sundae-mike-dean-harry-kane-daniel-sturridge.json
|
en
| null |
Saturday Sundae: Mike Dean’s penalties, Kane’s blanks and reluctant Sturridge
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
STAR OF THE DAY
Bournemouth keeper Artur Boruc had the game of his life at Palace – making it to 90 minutes +2 before shipping an equaliser.
CAMPAIGN OF THE DAY
Selhurst referee Mike Dean’s one-man war on grappling. Dean has now notched four penalties in three games; Yohan Cabaye had the decency to miss it.
STRUGGLE OF THE DAY
England Euro 2016 corner specialist Harry Kane preserved his run of having played 10 Premier League games in the month of August without scoring.
FACE OF THE DAY
Reluctant sub Daniel Sturridge, reacting when Jürgen Klopp brought Divock Origi on before him.
COLOUR CLASH OF THE DAY
Visitors Arsenal ran out to play the famously yellow-shirted, black-socked Watford wearing their black- shirted, yellow-socked third kit. Bad news for viewers; good news for retailers of third kits.
TEAMTALKS OF THE DAY
After a first-half free-for-all in the Lowland League, Civil Service Strollers went in at the break 7-3 down to visitors East Stirlingshire. Then both managers tightened it up, and it ended 8-3.
THEME OF THE DAY
Southend v Fleetwood – the Shrimpers beaten 2-0 at home by the Cod Army in a League One fish-based thriller.
AND MOST BRITISH MOMENT
Swindon’s game against Bristol Rovers being abandoned due to the summer weather. @Official_STFC: “We’ve got thunder, lightning and monsoon-like rain. Happy bank holiday weekend, everyone.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/saturday-sundae-mike-dean-harry-kane-daniel-sturridge
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6c203f5587b52c452e49120861d8a3e0b157d198c41d8d5223617a5fecca90f5.json
|
|
[
"Mary Catherine O'Connor"
] | 2016-08-27T14:54:50 | null | 2016-08-27T13:30:04 |
Traffic congestion has become part of the experience of visiting popular national parks in the US. Now, more parks are beefing up their public transport options
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsustainable-business%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Famerica-national-parks-birthday-centenary-public-transit.json
|
en
| null |
Ditch the car: how to visit America's national parks without the congestion
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
If you’ve ever visited an iconic national park like Yellowstone, Yosemite or Glacier, your first glimpses of arresting, postcard-perfect vistas were probably framed by a car window. That’s how I first glimpsed Yosemite’s Half Dome. After driving through the tunnels on Big Oak Flat Road, the road curved and the valley came into view. Angels sang. I was so overwhelmed by that monolith’s grandeur and beauty that I had to pull over onto the shoulder and have a good cry.
Years later, I stuffed my backpack with supplies and headed out my front door, Yosemite bound once again. I walked 10 minutes to the nearest San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) station, which I rode east, to the Richmond station, and transferred to Amtrak. I used the train’s free Wi-Fi to get some work done during the scenic two-hour and 40-minute ride to Merced, California, where I waited a half hour for a Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (Yarts) bus up to Yosemite, another two-hour trip.
10 of the least-visited US national parks Read more
In total, my fares were double what I’d have paid in gas, but bus riders are exempt from the park’s entrance fee ($20 then, $30 now). The trip took more than an hour longer than driving would have, though slogging through Bay Area traffic could have evened that scale. One less car in the crowded, summer-packed Yosemite Valley that day made an imperceptible difference to the park’s clogged roads and parking lots. But once I was inside the park, the free park shuttles and my own two feet took me everywhere I wanted to go. I experienced zero road rage and could have wept over Half Dome to my heart’s content without worrying about swerving off the road.
One hundred years ago, former US president Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation that created the National Park Service (NPS) to manage 35 parks and monuments. Since then, the number of national parks has swelled along with crowds. Back in 1916, a few hundred thousand people would visit those parks each year. But by the late 1990s, visitation to the hundreds of landmarks within the park system rose to around 280 million, and by last year it reached 307 million. The popularity of the country’s national parks has risen along with the number of highways and privately-owned vehicles.
Between the 1965 and 1985, visitation to the NPS grew 122%, and the crown jewels of our collectively-owned landscape started to suffer from congestion, which degraded air quality – not to mention the quality of the experience.
Some parks, including Denali National Park in Alaska and Zion National Park in Utah, started to restrict vehicular access, requiring visitors to take shuttles through the park, due to safety issues or congestion problems, or to reduce impacts to wildlife. But many parks responded to increased traffic by building bigger parking lots. That has a smaller price tag, at least in the short term, than creating systems for alternative transportation, which national parks have struggled to pay for.
The benefits of limiting cars to minimize environmental impact aren’t straightforward, however, says Francesco Orsi, an assistant professor of geography at Kansas State University and the editor of Sustainable Transportation in Natural and Protected Areas. Cars may be a big source of air pollution and carbon emissions, but they also limit the number of people wearing out trails and trampling through areas with sensitive habitats.
“In Rocky Mountain National Park, they introduced buses and realized they were bringing in more people,” Orsi says. “With buses, there was more capacity and (that creates) more demand on the trail system. So they had to find a balance between buses and cars.”
During the next 100 years, Orsi says the biggest impact our cars will make to national parks won’t come from the tailpipes. “In the future [thanks to electrification], cars won’t emit carbon. The big issue is that cars occupy space.” That means building parking lots on land that would otherwise remain wild and leave behind visual scars. Orsi has seen this in his native Italy. “In the Dolomites, when you climb a mountain, you look down and see an ocean of cars.”
In 2010, the Federal Transit Administration launched Transit in Parks, a granting program that directed $80m to transit programs for the NPS. This seeded some promising projects, but funding was axed in the 2012 federal transportation bill. This, and its own addled budget, led the NPS to rely more on state and municipal authorities, as well as private businesses, to develop and support public transit projects.
The NPS has had mixed success trying to ease congestion while still making public lands accessible. Here, we profile three of the service’s most promising programs.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Yosemite National Park YARTS bus. Photograph: Gerald Robinson/Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System
Golden State success story
Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (Yarts) is a government agency funded mostly by the counties it serves and by Yosemite National Park – in fact, the park provides around 36% of Yarts’ operating budget. Yarts, which passed its one-millionth rider mark in 2014, also has contracts with Amtrak and Greyhound, which many riders use to connect to the buses. Revenue from fares accounts for 18% of its budget. (A round trip between Merced and Yosemite is $25.)
Businesses in the gateway communities near Yosemite also benefit from Yarts, says its manager Dick Whittington. “We have an excellent relationship with hotels. And the RV parks on Highway 120 are big Yarts promoters, because guests come in, hook up their RVs [to water, power and sewer lines] and then don’t want to unhook them to drive up to Yosemite, so they take the bus. We also have folks who come on Amtrak, ride the bus to their hotel and then into the park the next day.”
Last year, Yarts launched a new summer route to Fresno, California’s fifth largest city. With its international airport, the Fresno link opens up a direct transit route for visitors flying into the state. Even though it was a new service, Yarts picked up almost 700 people at the Fresno airport last summer.
Lessons from Yellowstone
Driving and traffic congestion weren’t always part of the national park experience, says Jan Brown, the former executive director of the Yellowstone Business Partnership (YBP), a now dissolved nonprofit that worked to introduce the principles of sustainable business practices to the communities around Yellowstone National Park.
When Yellowstone was founded in 1872, public transit – provided by a horseman and a coach – was the only way to see that park. Later, guests arrived via rail. But once cars took over the roads, they came to define access to public lands.
In 2011, the YBP, along with seven different public transportation providers in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, launched a co-operative, dubbed Linx, to provide bus services into the park from surrounding communities. The project, launched with a $500,000 federal grant, envisioned shuttles every 20 minutes linking regional airports in Idaho Falls, Salt Lake, Bozeman and Billings to Yellowstone.
“The Transit in Parks programs were controlled by the park service and needed their approval, but our idea was to not start a new public transit system – that was very important,” says Brown. “What we wanted to do was support [transportation] businesses all around the park.”
Linx provided rides from mid-June through September for three years. Single day tickets were $20, or $80 for a five-day pass. In 2012, Linx ran a pilot program, sponsored by New Belgium Brewing, in which bike racks were mounted on select buses. Many Linx users used the service as a shuttle, allowing them to undertake a long day hike or multi-day backpack trip and then return via bus.
Steeped in debt and unable to find financial support, Linx, as well as the YBP, went under in 2014.
Brown believes Linx may have been ahead of its time. She says mobile phone apps, which back in 2011 were more expensive and difficult to deploy, would have made scheduling and advertising the service far simpler. In the end, most Linx riders were park employees, not the tourists that the providers were targeting.
“We had urged Yellowstone National Park to support our mobility plan,” says Arthur Kull, who was president of Linx. “[But former] Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk refused to allocate any funds to our project.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Acadia National Park’s Island Explorer bus service. Photograph: Gregg TeHennepe
Maine’s gold standard
For nearly two decades, the Island Explorer bus service in Maine’s Acadia National Park has provided some relief to the park’s congestion problems while also linking tourists to hotels, restaurants and other businesses outside the park.
Downeast Transportation, a private nonprofit, operates the Island Explorer. During its 1998 pilot year, the Island Explorer served park campgrounds and charged $2 fares. The next year, says general manager Paul Murphy, “We asked the Friends of Acadia [a park advocacy group] to do an experiment. We asked: what would happen if we removed fare?” Padded with a $3,500 grant from the group, the bus trips became free and ridership grew by 600%.
Climate change will mean the end of national parks as we know them Read more
At the onset, the service aimed to transport 1,000 passengers per day. Now, with a far wider route map and more busses, the Island Explorer regularly moves 5,000-6,000 people each day during the park’s peak season. That number has reached 8,000 on busy days. By providing an alternative to driving, Downeast Transportation estimates that the service has replaced 2.3m vehicle trips and reduced 21,504 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Acadia uses half of each park visitor’s entry free to help the Island Explorer – the park provides more than 40% of the bus system’s funding. The Federal Transit Authority’s rural transit funds and the Maine Department of Transportation cover the second largest portion, followed by Maine-based outdoor gear seller LL Bean, which has sponsored the bus system with $4m over the years. Businesses outside the park that host bus stops also contribute. Plus, donation boxes inside the buses generate $50,000 each year.
Tourists arriving via the airport at Bar Harbor, a quaint town just outside of Acadia, can jump on the Island Explorer right from the terminal, though the vast majority of out-of-towners drive to Acadia and then switch to the bus service, Murphy says.
Tom Crikelair, a transportation planning consultant who helped develop the Island Explorer program, says there is no silver bullet to developing a sustainable transportation system.
“Just because it works here, you can’t necessarily do the same thing elsewhere. It all depends on convenience: if you want someone to get out of their car, you’ve got to give them something better than their car,” Crikelair says.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/27/america-national-parks-birthday-centenary-public-transit
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/69a5e0997dbc72f0bb05635a860de4f7e662062a1e546988cd357024ab799015.json
|
|
[
"Luis Miguel Echegaray",
"Kevin Mitchell"
] | 2016-08-31T02:52:53 | null | 2016-08-31T02:49:46 |
Game-by-game report: Will the Wimbledon champion get off to a good start in New York? Join Luis Miguel Echegaray for the latest news
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fandy-murray-lukas-rosol-us-open-first-round-latest-score.json
|
en
| null |
Andy Murray v Lukas Rosol: US Open first round - live!
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Andy Murray finds balance as he looks to cap his finest summer yet at US Open | Kevin Mitchell
Read more
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2016/aug/30/andy-murray-lukas-rosol-us-open-first-round-latest-score
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ba2609ce86ccf29ec7646f12152681aa0c2bc3ea8026f9f94a376e0736211a62.json
|
|
[
"Julia Kollewe"
] | 2016-08-28T16:49:46 | null | 2016-08-28T15:14:13 |
Shoppers looking for the remaining bargains say they will miss the department store
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Feverything-must-go-as-bhs-wood-green-closes-its-doors-for-the-last-time.json
|
en
| null |
Everything must go as BHS Wood Green closes its doors for the last time
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The closure of the BHS store in Wood Green, north London, leaves a big hole on the local high street that will be hard to fill, shoppers say.
The Wood Green shop shut its doors for the final time at 2pm on Sunday after more than 40 years, three hours earlier than usual after running out of things to sell. Or, more accurately, running out of stock that anyone wanted to buy.
Plastered with posters saying: “All stock reduced. Store closing. Everything must go,” and: “Save up to 80%” in the windows below the severe grey concrete facade, earlier in the day the shop had been teeming with people looking for last-minute bargains.
They rifled through the dozen or so clothes rails that were left, with most of the store stripped bare. Babywear cost £1 an item; T-shirts went for £3, down from £10; denim trousers were discounted to £9 from £30; while a motley collection of women’s shoes, dresses, tops and skirts were priced at £7.
All store fixtures, fittings and equipment such as rails and shelves were also for sale, all priced at £25 (originally £50) an item.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fixtures and fittings for sale at BHS Wood Green. Photograph: Julia Kollewe for the Guardian
Ella Luma, who said she was a regular BHS shopper, had popped in with her baby to pick up a bargain, but left empty-handed. She said she was disappointed to see that the store was closing. “Do we know what’s going in here?”
That was one of the main questions on shoppers’ minds. Joan McLeish said she had been shopping at the Wood Green store for more than 30 years. “It’s a shame it is closing. It’s a loss to us, the community.”
She still misses the C&A department store, which closed 16 years ago, and the Marks & Spencer, which closed last year, saying it was hard to find local retailers that sold clothes and homeware of good quality. “It means you have to go further and further … [BHS] used to be our shop. When we went on holiday, we got everything here.”
“It’s very sad,” her husband Patrick chipped in.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest BHS Wood Green
Arnold De Souza had been buying his clothes at the Wood Green shop on and off over the last four decades, but could not find any men’s clothes on the last day. “It’s a bit of a sad thing it’s closing. It’s an institution,” he said.
“I hope they get this Sir Philip Green. He should have put some more money into the pension fund. He took a lot out in dividends. That’s not fair.”
He wondered whether the Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley, whose rescue bid for parts of BHS was rejected by the administrators, might have done a better job.
Like others, De Souza was concerned about what was left on the Wood Green high street, and said shoppers would have to head to the West End. “In the area there is nothing now – a lot of restaurants, pawn shops. If you want something good, there is nothing.”
The high street near the BHS store is dominated by charity shops, phone shops, food retailers and betting shops.
Another shopper, Iwona Gladysheva, was wearing a pair of trousers she had bought on a previous visit to the store. “Many people are very upset, “ she said. “Those pound shops are rubbish. This was a good shop. Why is it closing?”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/28/everything-must-go-as-bhs-wood-green-closes-its-doors-for-the-last-time
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c0d9efd7d8c9fed75aa673c33ea3e01eac30699380dca06fd48263edcce296c6.json
|
|
[
"Hilary Osborne"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:12 | null | 2012-05-02T00:00:00 |
House prices rise and fall – often in the same month – depending on which property index you read. Here we explain why this happens and how each one is compiled
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2012%2Fmay%2F03%2Fhouse-prices-different-indices.json
|
en
| null |
House prices: what do the different indices show?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Every month a number of organisations publish house price indices, each based on a different set of data. Sometimes the findings agree, sometimes they conflict. When we report on these figures we explain what they are showing, but we thought it would be useful to give a comprehensive guide to the main indices.
Whether you are buying or selling a property, working in the property industry, or just interested in the ups and downs of the housing market, it helps to know exactly who is producing each index, what data they use, and what the headline figures actually reflect.
Over on the house prices blog you can tell us what you think about the different indices.
Click below to see the different indices:
Halifax
Land Registry
LSL Property Services/Acadametrics
Nationwide
Office for National Statistics
Rightmove
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Who compiles it? Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, and one of the UK's biggest mortgage lenders.
What does it show? The average price agreed on a property being bought using a Halifax mortgage, and the percentage change in the price over the month and year. A quarterly survey shows regional data.
What area does it cover? The whole of the UK.
What time period does it cover? A full calendar month: the 1st until the last day of the month.
What is it based on? Mortgages approved by Halifax.
How long has it been going? Halifax started publishing data in January 1983, but the index in its current form began in April 1984.
Is it seasonally adjusted? Yes.
What else is done to the raw data? Halifax "standardises" the figures so that instead of comparing the prices of one set of houses one month with another set of houses the next, it tracks the price of a "typical house". It creates this by giving values to certain attributes of the properties being bought – including the number of rooms, how much central heating it has and whether there is a garden – and using these to calculate the price. This is called the "hedonic method". For its annual price change it uses an average of the last three months' prices and compares this with the average for the same period of the previous year. Full details are here (A4 document).
Why should I trust it? Halifax is one of the UK's largest lenders and has been running the survey in the same way for almost 30 years.
Why should I be sceptical? Although Halifax attempts to iron out anomalies, critics say its data can be skewed in months when there are low numbers of transactions, and that the bank's historical northern bias means its typical house may not reflect the average UK house.
Who compiles it? The Land Registry is the government department responsible for registering and recording details of land and property ownership in England and Wales. It employs Calnea Analytics to actually compile the data.
What does it show? The average asking price of properties bought in the past month – these are the prices on completion and include cash purchases as well as those funded with a mortgage. It also reports annual and monthly price changes.
What area does it cover? England and Wales.
What time period does it cover? Calendar month.
What is it based on? The prices paid in residential sales in England and Wales completed during the month and reported to the Land Registry – about 35% are usually reported by the month end.
How long has it been going? Since 2005, although data going back to January 1995 has been added.
Is it seasonally adjusted? Yes.
What else is done to the raw data? Any property that hasn't been sold at least twice since 1995 is removed from the sample – Land Registry says it has slightly more than 6m identifiable matched pairs of sales – and the index is based on the repeat sales regression method. The average price as at April 2000 is taken as the baseline price, and growth measured in each period is applied to it to produce the current average price. Full details are here (pdf).
Why should I trust it? Land Registry says its index is "the most accurate independent house price index available. Using our data set of completed sales, it is the only index based on repeat sales." It is the only one based on all sales, mortgaged and otherwise, and on the final price achieved for the property.
Why should I be sceptical? Like some of the others it is seasonally adjusted. It doesn't reflect the prices paid for new-build properties or those that have remained in the same hands for a long period, which means fewer than the 35% of sales reported are actually used. The index is revised each month because of the time lag between completions and registrations, which means it is eventually very robust, but also means you are dealing with a figure which will change slightly.
Who compiles it? Acadametrics, a consultancy which specialises in the assessment of risk in property and mortgage portfolios, for LSL, a property company which owns estate agency firms and surveyors.
What does it show? The average price of a property bought and registered with the Land Registry over the past month. It shows monthly and annual changes and the number of sales.
What area does it cover? England and Wales. A separate index for Scotland is based on the Registers of Scotland.
What time period does it cover? Calendar month.
What is it based on? The Land Registry's house price data.
How long has it been going? Since September 2003 (originally it was the FT House price index), but data going back to 1995 has been added and it has been back-cast to 1989.
Is it seasonally adjusted? Yes.
What else is done to the raw data? Land Registry gathers all of its data for sales reported during a month, including sales completed in previous months, and calculates average prices. These are given to Acadametrics, which mix adjusts them to provide an average price which isn't skewed by changes in the types of properties sold month-on-month. Because only around a third of sales completed in a month are reported by the end of the month, an "index of indices" model is used to calculate what the figure will be when all sales are in.
Why should I trust it? It is based on a big data set and refers to completed sales financed with mortgages and cash, including new-build properties as well as older homes. The "index of indices" calculation allows it to be more up to date than the Land Registry.
Why should I be sceptical? Once all sales are in it is subject to change, and each month figures from previous months are updated.
Who compiles it? Nationwide, the UK's largest building society and one of the biggest mortgage lenders.
What does it show? The average price agreed on a property bought using a Nationwide mortgage, and the percentage change in the price over the month and year. A quarterly survey shows regional data.
What area does it cover? The whole of the UK.
What time period does it cover? Ostensibly a calendar month, but it is always published before the end of the month and Nationwide will not say which date it runs to, claiming the information is commercially sensitive.
What is it based on? Mortgages that are at the approvals stage with Nationwide, which is after the valuation has been done. Nationwide says its share of the gross house purchase market has been about 10% in recent years.
How long has it been going? The society has quarterly figures dating back to 1952 and monthly figures dating back to 1991, although it changed its methodology in 1993.
Is it seasonally adjusted? Yes.
What else is done to the raw data? Several types of property are removed, including buy-to-let and right-to-buy properties, plus very small or very large homes (there are specified limits for each type of property). The society then "mix-adjusts" the prices to come up with the price of a "typical house". The system looks at factors such as location and number of bedrooms, and relates them to the price for which the house was sold. From this the model can estimate how much on average a house would cost given a set of values for these characteristics. Full details are here (pdf).
Why should I trust it? Nationwide says its index can cope with low numbers of transactions: "Although it remains similar to the Halifax method we substantially updated our system in 1993 following the publication of the 1991 census data. These improvements mean that our system is more robust to lower sample sizes because it better identifies and tracks our representative house price."
Why should I be sceptical? Although the typical home is used, as with Halifax critics say its data can be skewed in months when there are low numbers of transactions and by the society's southern bias.
Who compiles it? Previously the communities and local government department, now the Office for National Statistics – the government's official data collectors.
What does it show? The average price on completion for a property in the UK, and annual and monthly changes. Data is broken down by region, type of property and type of buyer.
What area does it cover? The whole of the UK.
What time period does it cover? A full calendar month, but there is a lag – March's figures are published in May.
What is it based on? Data from a sample of completed property sales provided by mortgage lenders, representing about 65%-70% of homes bought with mortgages. During 2007, when there were on average about 85,000 loans a month for house purchase in the UK, approximately 50,000 records a month were supplied by about 60 lenders. In the six months to June 2011 there were an average of 37,000 loans a month for house purchase, and 26 lenders supplied information on about 21,600 sales.
How long has it been going? Since February 2002.
Is it seasonally adjusted? The index includes both seasonally adjusted figures and untouched figures at the national level.
What else is done to the raw data? It is "mix-adjusted" so it isn't skewed if a lot of flats in the south-east are sold one month, then a lot of four-bed homes in Scotland the next. Different characteristics of each property are given values/weights, and these feed into a model of an average home. The values are based on the transactions carried out during the previous three years. For example, the 2012 weights are based on transaction numbers from 2009-2010.
Why should I trust it? Because it is based on data from a large number of mortgage lenders and because, unlike most of the others, it isn't seasonally adjusted. The ONS says it is "one of the main house price indices used by central and local government to support decision making in the UK".
Why should I be sceptical? When the DCLG still managed the index it said it was "influenced by house price growth rates in the higher priced areas (which are currently in the south) where house prices – and therefore total expenditure on house buying – is highest. Similarly, regional rates of change in house prices determined by the DCLG Index are more influenced by the market for the higher priced properties (ie, the demand for detached houses)."
Who compiles it? Rightmove, a website which advertises properties being sold by 90% of UK estate agents.
What does it show? The average asking price for properties put on the market over the past month, and the percentage change in that price over the month and over the year.
What area does it cover? England and Wales.
What time period does it cover? The month up to the second Sunday of every month – this may be four or five weeks depending on how the calendar falls. March's figures will be measured on the second Sunday in March.
What is it based on? The asking prices of homes newly listed on the website – in a typical reporting period Rightmove says that will usually be 30,000-40,000 properties a week, or around 120,000 in total.
How long has it been going? Records began in August 2001; reporting began in August 2002.
Is it seasonally adjusted? No.
What else is done to the raw data? Properties with asking prices that are three standard deviations above or below the mean within each region are removed from the calculations. This can be several thousand homes. The data is mix-adjusted so it isn't skewed if, for example, in one month many more flats are sold compared to houses. That value is then used in the calculation of the average national price.
Why should I trust it? Rightmove says of its survey: "It is produced from factual data of actual prices of properties currently on the market." The sample includes "circa 90% of the market – the largest and most up-to-date monthly sample of any house price indicator in the UK".
Why should I be sceptical? As Rightmove admits: "It reflects asking prices when properties first come on to the market, rather than those recorded by lenders during the mortgage application process or final sales prices reported to the Land Registry." The actual prices fetched for the properties could be wildly different.
Who compiles it? Rics, the trade body for surveyors.
What does it show? How surveyors think the property market is behaving in their area.
What time period does it cover? A calendar month. Surveys are sent in the second week of the month and received by the end of the month.
What is it based on? Responses to a monthly survey of 450-500 surveyors (usually 250-300 reply). They are asked 10 questions covering changes in prices, sales and interest over the previous three months and what they expect to happen over the next year. They are also asked for firm figures on how many homes have been sold and how many are for sale.
What area does it cover? England and Wales. Information is collected across 10 geographical regions.
How long has it been going? Since January 1978.
Is it seasonally adjusted? Yes.
What else is done to the raw data? It is regionally weighted using long-term averages based on Land Registry figures. If an area represents 10% of sales, responses from that area will be weighted to represent 10% of Rics' overall figure. Numbers are crunched to produce a net balance, so instead of telling us how many surveyors think prices will go up and how many think they will go down, the index subtracts the proportion forecasting a fall from the proportion forecasting a rise – so if 10% think prices will rise but 20% think they will fall, it says -10% think there will be a fall. This does not mean a 10% fall is being predicted.
Why should I trust it? Figures showing how many properties are on sale and how many would-be buyers are signing up can give you a good idea of what is happening in the housing market.
Why should I be sceptical? Because the rest of it is based on sentiment.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/may/03/house-prices-different-indices
|
en
| 2012-05-02T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1d8e040ed77ba12f092e8ab0ee792e29f9e38fafdd3301ff3f9efdd4dd200341.json
|
|
[
"Rebecca Smithers"
] | 2016-08-26T13:28:39 | null | 2016-08-23T06:00:07 |
The airline wasn’t the cheapest but it usually offers excellent service – not this time
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fzika-holiday-virgin-atlantic-no-refund.json
|
en
| null |
Zika grounded our dream holiday, now Virgin Atlantic won’t refund us
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In January we booked a holiday – a fortnight in Florida in August – for my wife and I, our daughter and her partner and our two-year-old grandson. The total cost was £2,700. In March our daughter told us she was pregnant again. When we heard towards the end of July that pregnant women were being advised not to travel to Florida due to the Zika virus, we checked on the Public Health England government website and found that although the risk in Florida was deemed “moderate” it nevertheless advised pregnant women to postpone all “non-essential” travel there. We decided to cancel our holiday rather than take any risks.
We had booked to Orlando through Ebookers with Virgin Atlantic, so we thought there would be no problem. However, Ebookers and Virgin Atlantic kept passing the buck between them, and Virgin Atlantic then insisted it would make refunds only for travel to Miami. So Virgin Atlantic has taken all our money and won’t give it back. Virgin wasn’t the cheapest option but we’ve used it many times for its reliability and excellent service for families. RK, Liverpool
Cases of locally transmitted Zika virus – linked to severe brain defects in newborn babies – have only been confirmed in the last three months in Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and were not known about in January when you booked your holiday. Anyone travelling to any of these places is advised to follow the advice issued by the National Travel Health Network and Centre (for travel to Florida, for travel to Puerto Rico, for travel to US Virgin Islands), particularly if they are expecting a child or planning to become pregnant.
People in your situation should be given the choice of a full refund or the opportunity to change their booking to another destination, so we were as puzzled as you by the responses of Virgin Atlantic and Ebookers. After we contacted the airline, Virgin Atlantic admitted in a statement that “there must have been some confusion our end, as the lady in question is indeed entitled to a full refund as she is travelling to an affected state”. It is now organising a full refund for you and your entire party.
Virgin added: “While isolated cases of locally transmitted Zika virus have been confirmed by the authorities in Miami, at present the Department for Health has confirmed it considers only an area of around 1 square mile in Miami-Dade county at risk of transmission. However, we always endeavour to do the right thing by our customers and anyone travelling to areas affected by the outbreak of Zika, who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant and do not wish to travel, should call our customer service teams for help and advice. We will look at all options, including rebooking for a later date or alternative destination, or for pregnant customers who no longer wish to travel, a full refund. We will continue to monitor the advice from the leading health organisations and adapt our policy should we need to do so, in line with their recommendations.”
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/23/zika-holiday-virgin-atlantic-no-refund
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/45fcea521bf827525f08f8788b0cf6ecd2e4f017d955e9c29f5fbab4e36c83d6.json
|
|
[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-30T06:52:33 | null | 2016-08-30T02:08:52 |
Greater Western Sydney star, and former No1 AFL draft pick, Lachie Whitfield is reportedly being investigated for deliberately avoiding drug testers with the assistance of former club employees
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fgws-player-lachie-whitfield-investigated-over-illicit-drug-allegation.json
|
en
| null |
GWS player Lachie Whitfield investigated over illicit drug allegation
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Greater Western Sydney say an allegation from a member of the public prompted the club’s investigation into whether midfielder Lachie Whitfield attempted to avoid illicit drug testing.
Fairfax Media reports the AFL is considering what action to take, if any, after completing its own investigation into whether 22-year-old Whitfield stayed at the home of former welfare manager Craig Lambert in May last year in order to avoid a drug test.
Justin Leppitsch sacked as Brisbane Lions AFL coach Read more
Fairfax says it understands there are incriminating text messages between former No1 draft pick Whitfield and his then girlfriend.
Whitfield, who re-signed with the Giants for a further two seasons earlier this year, as well as both Lambert and former football manager Graeme Allan would face the prospect of two-to-four-year bans if it were proven they conspired to evade or were complicit in seeking to evade a drug test.
The Giants issued a statement on Tuesday after the story broke. “The Giants can confirm that midway through last year the club received an allegation from a member of the public that warranted investigation,” the statement said.
“The club notified the AFL and commissioned an independent investigation by a senior counsel based on the evidence available. The club has been cooperating fully with the AFL who have been conducting a separate investigation. The club is awaiting advice from the AFL to finalise the matter.”
The story broke at a bad time for the club with the Giants preparing to play their first AFL finals match, against cross-town rival Sydney on Saturday week. An AFL spokesperson said on Tuesday they didn’t know when the result of their investigation would be released.
Whitfield, the No1 pick in the 2012 draft, is expected to be available for selection for the qualifying final against Sydney at ANZ stadium. He has had a solid season for the Giants, playing 19 out of their 22 home and away games and averaging 20 disposals a match.
Both Allan and Lambert have since left the Giants – Allan was recently appointed football director at Collingwood and Lambert returned to work at the Brisbane Lions.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/30/gws-player-lachie-whitfield-investigated-over-illicit-drug-allegation
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6bc2e728262c360d27a333853e403fb5b573a9961a934c8c4f8cfdfd3c0b3095.json
|
|
[
"Sarah Butler"
] | 2016-08-31T08:59:58 | null | 2016-08-21T16:18:36 |
Citizens Advice records nearly 60% rise in women reporting maternity leave issues including roles being changed and hours reduced
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F21%2Frise-in-women-facing-discrimination-on-taking-maternity-leave.json
|
en
| null |
Rise in women facing discrimination on taking maternity leave
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
New mothers are facing increasing discrimination when they take maternity leave including being made redundant and switched to zero-hours contracts.
Citizens Advice has recorded a nearly 60% rise in the number of women seeking advice about maternity leave issues this year. Just over 3,300 came to the charity with such issues in the year to June compared to 2,099 last year.
The surge in reported problems has emerged after the Guardian revealed that Sports Direct workers returning from maternity leave are claiming they were moved on to zero-hours contracts. The claims were made in court documents relating to a breach-of-contract case in which workers say they were excluded from the retailer’s generous bonus scheme.
Citizens Advice says the introduction of fees for employment tribunals, through which workers can challenge poor treatment, has combined with the rise of zero-hours contracts, agency work and multiple part-time jobs to make employees more vulnerable to sharp practice on maternity rights.
Legally, women are protected from losing their job, having their hours changed or their responsibility reduced as a result of pregnancy. While employment and sex discrimination legislation offers protection, responsibility for enforcing such employment rights is spread across a wide range of agencies, from HMRC to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, said Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.
“This confusing landscape means some bad bosses are getting away with treating their employees unfairly,” Guy said. “There is an opportunity for the government to consider bringing together the expertise of all current labour market enforcement functions into one well-resourced, effective body to investigate bad practice.”
Citizens Advice said the most common issue it dealt with in relation to maternity leave was being made redundant followed by a reduction in hours, including being moved to a zero-hours contract and having a role changed upon return to work.
A report into the issue, released by Citizens Advice this week, highlights the case of Nadia, who worked as a head chef in a local pub on a permanent contract. When she had difficulties during her pregnancy that meant she could no longer work in the kitchen she was offered work as a waitress on a zero-hours contract.
Another woman, who works for a national retail chain, told the Guardian she had her hours cut from about 34 a week to 26 during her pregnancy after she arrived late for work on one occasion.
“They said it was for my safety but that didn’t make sense. I was fine,” she said. Although she worked regular hours on the shop floor, she was employed on a zero-hours contract basis and found it hard to ensure she received any maternity pay.
‘When I go to work, my babies are with a man who loves them as much as I do’ Read more
Now back at work, she feels under pressure to work even when her child is ill or she has given several weeks’ notice that she needs time off because of difficulties in finding childcare.
“I don’t really feel secure. Sometimes it feels like I have to go in or they will reduce my hours to nothing or I will lose my job. It’s always at the back of my mind when my daughter is not very well.”
The research by Citizens Advice supports the findings of a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into maternity discrimination published last year.
The study estimated that around 54,000 new mothers are losing their jobs across Britain every year – almost twice the number identified in similar research undertaken in 2005.
It also found that 10% of women were discouraged from attending antenatal appointments by their employers, putting the health of mother and baby at risk.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/21/rise-in-women-facing-discrimination-on-taking-maternity-leave
|
en
| 2016-08-21T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b55e903f7647725774d1f09cb1689c1cfbc7fd989246fac7079356be7b56b9b8.json
|
|
[
"Jasper Jackson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:04:33 | null | 2016-08-25T10:16:56 |
More than 10 million people tune in to watch the return of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, the biggest ever for an opening episode of the BBC show
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fgreat-british-bake-off-mary-berry-paul-hollywood-bbc.json
|
en
| null |
The Great British Bake Off draws record launch audience
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The return of the Great British Bake Off drew more than 10 million viewers on BBC1 on Wednesday evening, the biggest ever opening audience for the nation’s favourite TV show.
Nearly half the total viewing audience tuned in to watch the new batch of contestants demonstrate their baking skills under the watchful eyes of experts Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. In a series billed as something of a return to basics, the first technical challenge saw the 12 bakers tasked with producing a plate of jaffa cakes.
The Great British Bake Off review – blood, innuendo and drizzle cake Read more
At its peak the opener was watched by more than 11 million viewers, and the average audience of 10.4 million was well above last year’s launch which attracted 9.3 million viewers, itself a huge improvement on the preceding series which saw 7.2 million people tune in.
The series has grown in popularity since its debut on BBC2 in 2010 with 2 million viewers, and has proved a reliable ratings hit for the BBC. Last year’s finale in which Nadiya Hussain took the baking crown was the most-watched programme of the year with more than 13 million viewers.
Jane Beedle, a garden designer from Beckenham, earned this season’s first star baker accolade, but the heat proved too much for Rev Lee Banfield, a pastor and former builder from Bolton who was the first contestant to be eliminated.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/25/great-british-bake-off-mary-berry-paul-hollywood-bbc
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/856d12db62ed9cc5d0a47eb8e49e2bcb8ff7346d0390c25944caea6cce08cfec.json
|
|
[
"Paul Doyle",
"Daniel Harris",
"Alan Smith"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:20 | null | 2016-08-05T09:00:01 |
From a vandalised wicket to mind-bending patterns at Flamengo v Mineiro via Murrayfield’s shapeshifting turf, half-a-dozen playing surface shambles
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fblog%2F2016%2Faug%2F05%2Fthe-joy-of-six-sporting-pitch-fiascos.json
|
en
| null |
The Joy of Six: sporting pitch fiascos
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
1) England v Australia at Headingley, 1975
Some 45 years after football but 12 years before rugby union, the cricketing visionaries hit upon the idea of a World Cup. Naturally, it – and its second and third iterations – needed to be held in England, so in the summer of 1975, the various nations arrived and West Indies won.
England made it as far as the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Australia – who hung around for an impromptu four-Test Ashes series. Just a few months earlier, they had brutalised a Geoff Boycottless England to the tune of 4-1, with Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson at their petrifying peaks and supplementary needle supplied by Ian Chappell and Rodney Marsh.
It came as no great surprise when England were humped again in the first Test at Edgbaston, so for Lord’s they handed a debut to the 33-year-old David Steele. And, incredibly, it worked. His 50 stabilised England after a dodgy start, and they went on to have the better of a draw more famous for the artistry of Michael Angelow, whose streak added a new wrinkle to the phrase “middle stump”.
For the third Test the teams moved to Headingley, where England began well before collapsing to a below-par but competitive 288 all out. Australia found batting far harder, particularly against the debuting Philippe Edmonds. He opened with six maidens, and six overs later had 5 for 17, removing Ian Chappell and Ross Edwards in successive balls and finishing on 5for 28, the tourists dismissed for 135. And while they were down England booted them hard, Steele adding 92 to his first innings 73, before a classic lower-order collapse left Australia needing a mere 445 to win.
No one had ever made more to win a Test match – no one has even now – and noting the presence of Jon Snow and Derek Underwood in the England attack, the bookies had an Australia win at 9-1. Typically, Ian Chappell was entirely unfazed, whacking 11 fours and one huge six before he was confounded by a challenging lbw decision.
Returning to the dressing room, Chappell hurled soap and profanities before taking a long shower, during which a premonition came to him: Doug Walters would score a century. So he ventured on to the balcony in his towel and told Walters that he was in next; Walters reminded him that Ross Edwards was. “Doug, go and put the fucking pads on,” came back the retort. “I’m going to bat you next. You go in next and get a hit against the old ball. You get a good start — I’ve seen you get hundreds on much worse pitches than this one. It’s a fucking good pitch.”
So when Greg Chappell went shortly afterwards, Walters joined Rick McCosker at the crease, and by the end of a thrilling day four, Australia were 220 for 3, with McCosker only five runs shy of a maiden Test century. The odds on them winning had halved, and the cricketing community was primed for something unique. That was precisely what they got.
In 1974 George Davis, a minicab driver, was sentenced to a 20-stretch for his part in a payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board offices, during which a policeman was shot. Those close to him argued that he had been “mistakenly identified” by two police officers, plotting a spectacular campaign to that end. His brothers-in-law spent seven hours on top of St Paul’s Cathedral, one of his friends drove into the gates of Buckingham Palace, Roger Daltrey wore a Free George Davis t-shirt and Sham 69 recorded “George Davis Is Innocent”.
Even now, that paragraph reads like a bizarre non-sequitur, but it is not. While the players slept, a band of Davis’s supporters daubed various slogans on Headingley’s outside walls – “FREE GEORGE DAVIS”, “GEORGE DAVIS IS INNOCENT” and “SORRY HAD TO DONE” [sic]. They also broke into the ground, dug holes in the pitch and poured oil over the Rugby Ground end of the square, just on a good length.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Graffiti on the walls at Headingley. Photograph: Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Popperfoto/Getty Images
Early the following morning, George Cawthray, the head groundsman, arrived on the scene. “When I first saw the damage it did not sink in,” he said. “I was amazed. I thought I should be able to repair the holes but it was the oil that did the damage.”
The captains were summoned from their hotels – Ian Chappell, who had not yet showered, arrived in the middle wearing jumper and slip-on shoes. There, he and Tony Greig were informed by the umpires, David Constant and Arthur Fagg, that because the pitch had changed in nature, the game could be called off according to the laws of the game – but there was also scope for an agreement to continue. The prospect of Underwood pitching in oil was not one that Chappell found appealing, but before he was forced to respond, Greig gallantly stepped in. “Well, I agree with you, the pitch is not fit for play and I think we’ll have to call the game off,” he said. “Thanks very much for that mate, I appreciate that,” Chappell replied.
So the game was abandoned as a draw, and in the event, the rain which fell from 4pm would probably have effected the same outcome. There was talk of squeezing in another match, but the Australian players, all in full-time employment, needed to get back to work. Which meant that, with a 1-0 lead and only one Test remaining, Australia had retained the Ashes.
The Joy of Six: extreme sporting conditions Read more
That evening, Colin Dean, one of Davis’s brothers-in-law, was interviewed on telly. “We can get the Ashes back anytime,” he noted. “What have we done? Dug a little bit of ground up. Is it sacred?”
He was one of four people eventually prosecuted for the damage – he, and two others, received suspended sentences, while Peter Chappell was jailed for 18 months. Later that summer a man drove his car across the square at Silverdale Cricket Club in Staffordshire, protesting against balls being hit into his garden.
As for Davis, he incurred the wrath of cricket-loving fellow inmates, before his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal in December 1975. But then in May 1976, Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, reviewed the case, invoking the Royal Prerogative of Mercy to recommend Davis’s release; though he was not declared to be innocent, his conviction was deemed “unsafe”.
Two years later, he was inside again, pleading guilty after being caught robbing a bank, and in 1987 he was jailed again for attempting to steal mailbags. But in 2011, his initial conviction was finally quashed – he considered this a victory, despite the Court of Appeal feeling unable to positively exonerate him. DH
2) Flamengo v Atlético Mineiro at Serra Dourada Stadium, 1981
Because the Brazilian rivals Flamengo and Atlético Mineiro finished level on points in the Copa Libertadores group stage. Having played out a pair of 2-2 draws, they had to meet for a playoff at a neutral venue. Goiânia at least satisfied that condition – but just look at the state of the markings on the pitch.
There was already plenty of bad blood between the teams going into the game but the psychedelic motif seemed to mess with some players’ heads even more, especially those of Mineiro: they had five men sent off within 35 minutes, leading to the abandonment of the match and the club’s expulsion from the tournament. Flamengo, featuring Zico, Junior and Leandro went on to be champions, a victory that qualified them for the Intercontinental Cup final, where they administered a memorable thrashing to Liverpool, who were dazzled by their opponents’ skill and movement rather than any of the groundsman’s stylings. PD
3) Scotland v Australia at Murrayfield, 2004
Australia beat their hosts 31-14 at Murrayfield in November 2004 but that did not stop the visitors’ coach, Eddie Jones, complaining about Scotland’s “underhand tactics”. A shapeshifting pitch was what riled him, but his Scotland counterpart and fellow Aussie, Matt Williams, reckoned all was fair dinkum.
Jones was miffed that the pitch was five metres narrower on matchday than it had been when Australia trained on it the previous day. He scoffed at a cowardly attempt to contain his wingers by literally giving them less room in which to manoeuvre. “We had a ground that was 70 metres wide when we trained on it yesterday and was 65 metres when we played on it,” protested Jones, whose anger was slightly softened by the fact that his side ran in four tries in the first 20 minutes. “It is a little bit comical and we’ve taken it in good jest but I don’t think we want to see this sort of thing continuing in international rugby. Hopefully that is something that can be put to bed.”
Williams was unrepentant and so was his captain, Gordon Bulloch, who noted: “There is nothing in the laws to say what the size of a pitch is and nothing in the laws to say you have to train on the same size of pitch that you play on. The pitch was fine on Saturday, there was green grass on it.” He was right: the grass had a lovely parakeet hue, and the laws made no stipulation about pitch size. The IRB – now called World Rugby – moved to close the loophole but there is still scope for mischief, as is clear from these provisions: “The field of play does not exceed 100 metres in length. Each in-goal does not exceed 22 metres in length. The playing area does not exceed 70 metres in width.”
A maximum size is indicated – but no minimum, with a weak follow-up clause stating: “The length and breadth of the playing area are to be as near as possible to the dimensions indicated.” Time, perhaps, for someone to bring a bit of New York Flash v Seattle Reign action to rugby union. PD
4) Chelsea v Charlton at Stamford Bridge, 2003
On 11 January 2003 Chelsea defeated Charlton 4-1 at home in the Premier League. Nothing surprising there, you might think – apart from the fact the game was played on a pop-up beach at Stamford Bridge. As Will Buckley wrote in the following morning’s Observer: “It was an expanse of sand ideal for beach cricket but troublesome and wearisome for serious football.”
The Joy of Six: football abandonments Read more
Chelsea, as the headline in the following morning’s paper glibly pointed out, coasted to victory. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink put the hosts in front inside three minutes after Chris Powell conceded a harsh penalty, and William Gallas made it 2-0 eight minutes later. In terms of the scoreline, the damage was done early but it took a little longer for players to start hurting. John Terry was the most notable victim, injuring his back midway through the first half and the game descended into farce when Carlo Cudicini was forced to pick up a back pass that bobbled freakishly in front of him.
Hoofing the ball became the most sensible approach and in the aftermath not even Claudio Ranieri, then in charge of Chelsea, was best pleased despite the three points, comparing the surface to Copacabana and Ipanema.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The sandy Stamford Bridge turf. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
Charlton claimed the beach had breached Premier League rules that stipulated artificial pitches were not allowed, saying they had, as reported by the Guardian, “no chance to prepare on a similar surface or bring appropriate footwear”, and requested for the match to be replayed.
An investigation was opened and Chelsea were given a financial sanction but the points remained theirs and they qualified for the Champions League, three points clear of Liverpool. Charlton finished in the no-man’s land of 12th. A new pitch was put down immediately after the game and there was grass for the next home fixture. “The holiday is over,” Ranieri said. AS
5) Croatia v Italy at the Poljud Stadium, 2015
So often delightful on the pitch but too regularly ugly off it – the dark side of Croatian football was apparent again during this summer’s European Championship when, in the latter stages of the group game against Czech Republic, a portion of supporters began throwing flares and smoke canisters on the pitch in a protest against the country’s football federation. The resentment and nastiness had been bubbling from some time before that, most notably 12 months previously, when a swastika was visible on the pitch during their qualifier against Italy in Split.
“As far as we have learned, the symbol was imprinted into the pitch between 24 and 48 hours before the match so that it could be visible during the game,” said Tomislav Pacak, a spokesperson for the Croatian FA. “We apologise to all fans watching the game on television, to both teams and to our guests from Italy for the Nazi symbol.”
It soon became apparent that the symbol was created by a chemical agent, only visible under lights, that had been sprayed on the surface by the member of an ultra-rightwing organisation. Furthermore, the fixture was already being played behind closed doors due to previous sanctions for racist chanting against Norway earlier in the campaign, and there had been trouble in the reverse fixture at San Siro too.
As explained by Alex Holiga, “a small group of people took complete control of Croatian football and concentrated all power in the hands of the seven-man urgency committee, which can decide on anything it finds urgent without the need of approval from the HNS’s executive committee. It is controlled by Zdravko Mamic, the Dinamo Zagreb executive who has strong ties in politics, the judicial system, the police and the media.”
That also makes the fact the match was played in Split increasingly relevant. Notably it was only the second international played in the city for 18 years, where there has long been an us versus them mentality, but there were accusations the federation, controlled by Davor Suker, had been aware the match would be played behind closed doors so decided to play it in Split, antagonising the hosts even more.
Nonetheless, it seems remarkable that a troublemaker could still get in to draw the swastika on the pitch considering the security precautions implemented near the stadium. Police had blocked off routes to the ground days in advance, there were 80 cameras positioned around the area and an anti-drone unit was dispatched to ensure there would be no repeat of Serbia v Albania. Yet someone found a way in and was left undetected while applying the chemicals.
Uefa deducted the team, themselves innocent, one point and the federation was fined but evidently the supporters have not taken any heed, and their relationship with those in power remains fractious. AS
6) West Indies v England at Sabina Park, 1998
“Everything was fine. Beautiful. So I left the match after it had started and went to my house for a cup of tea. And when I came back I couldn’t hear anything. So I knew something had happened.” That was Charlie Joseph, talking to the Guardian’s Paul Weaver in 2009. What had happened was that shortly after Joseph, the groundsman at Jamaica’s Sabina Park, had ambled off for his cuppa, a Test match was abandoned for the first time in cricket’s 122-year history because the pitch that Joseph was in charge of was deemed too dangerous.
After 10 overs and one ball, England were 17-3 and players were being battered by Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh because, on top of those fearsome bowlers’ laudable hostility, the pitch had introduced a vicious degree of randomness. “On a new clay surface that bore an uncanny resemblance to a strip of corrugated iron, the ball flew, from a length, towards the throat, or scuttled along the ground,” wrote Weaver. England’s captain, Michael Atherton, took the players off and the umpires endorsed his decision.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alec Stewart has a bruised arm treated before play was abandoned. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty
Joseph was vilified almost to the point of despair, telling Weaver: “They were all blaming me. I couldn’t walk on the road because people wanted to beat me up. A lot of money had been lost, millions went down the drain. Was it only three overs? My name was on the wireless. I wanted to go away and leave the country. I didn’t eat, hardly anything for three weeks. I thought about suicide, honestly I did. I saw a policeman with his back to me and I thought I would grab his gun and shoot myself. But I have children. We get over that now. Move to better times.” PD
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/aug/05/the-joy-of-six-sporting-pitch-fiascos
|
en
| 2016-08-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ffa4299be2c8fd5b940300624331e6df941a54a23f4b10e6713dc2e008574f8c.json
|
|
[
"Guy Lane",
"Photograph",
"Max Rossi Reuters",
"Yt Haryono Afp Getty Images",
"Jane Barlow Pa",
"Edgar Su Reuters",
"Eraldo Peres Ap",
"Rafael Marchante Reuters",
"Dan Himbrechts Aap",
"Owen Humphreys Pa"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:15 | null | 2016-08-26T11:33:55 |
The Guardian’s picture editors bring you a selection of photo highlights from around the world
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fnews%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fbest-photographs-of-the-day-a-muddy-protest-and-a-kingfishers-catch.json
|
en
| null |
Best photographs of the day: a muddy protest and a kingfisher's catch
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Jinan, China
More than 50 robots dance during the opening ceremony of the Shandong cultural industries fair. The robots are connected to cellphones instructing them to perform different actions according to various musical sounds.
Photograph: VCG/Getty Images
|
https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2016/aug/26/best-photographs-of-the-day-a-muddy-protest-and-a-kingfishers-catch
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c02d9a3a4cfb4ebf6bdea6c93214229bb521ab7acfe54d5906995573c5f92e12.json
|
|
[
"Anna Tims"
] | 2016-08-28T06:59:24 | null | 2016-06-08T13:03:03 |
The sale wouldn’t go through and Carphone Warehouse couldn’t tell me why
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Fjun%2F08%2Fcredit-rating-smartphone-contract-carphone-warehouse.json
|
en
| null |
I have a great credit rating - but I can’t buy a smartphone on contract
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
I recently went to purchase my first smartphone on contract at a Carphone Warehouse store. But I was informed that the sale could not proceed because of a problem with my credit rating. I opened an Experian account and found I had a credit rating of 995 out of 999. Neither Experian nor Carphone Warehouse would explain why I had been refused. I returned to the same Carphone Warehouse and attempted to purchase again. The exact same thing happened. Citizens Advice got nowhere either. FC, Edinburgh
Carphone Warehouse says the contract you were refused was with your chosen network provider, not with itself, and that due to data protection, the former is not allowed to tell the shop why. Carphone Warehouse collects data from the customer and acts as an intermediary between the customer and the network, which runs its own credit checks. So you need to get in touch with the provider to find out what the problem is, although Experian has offered a clue.
Apparently your phone application was processed under a nickname rather than your full forename listed on the electoral roll and much of your financial history. Any discrepancy can skew your credit rating, since records will fail to match up. Once you’ve confirmed the problem with the provider, try again under your formal name, but be aware that multiple applications for a product or service can impair your credit rating, as each check shows on your file and lenders might assume that you are a risk if you seek credit too often, too quickly.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/08/credit-rating-smartphone-contract-carphone-warehouse
|
en
| 2016-06-08T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e37324b65564dafffc5c9a4b12c7f926068be7875420fce661c0aa308a5eb2bb.json
|
|
[
"Alison Flood"
] | 2016-08-26T16:51:04 | null | 2016-08-26T15:41:30 |
Acclaimed author Aslı Erdoğan, who was imprisoned along with other pro-Kurdish writers after July’s failed coup, is being denied vital medical attention, say reports
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fturkish-novelist-jailed-in-unacceptable-conditions-say-campaigners.json
|
en
| null |
Turkish novelist jailed in 'unacceptable' conditions, say campaigners
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The renowned Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan says she is facing “permanent damage” from the treatment she is receiving in prison after her arrest last week.
Erdoğan, an award-winning and celebrated Turkish novelist, was arrested in her home on the night of 16 August, according to a statement from her French publisher Actes Sud. A columnist and member of the pro-Kurdish opposition daily Özgür Gündem’s advisory board, which was shut down under the state of emergency that followed the failed coup of 15 July, her arrest came alongside that of more than 20 other journalists and employees of the paper. She was subsequently charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation” and “undermining national unity”.
Erdoğan, whom the French literary magazine Lire named as one of the 50 most promising authors of the future, told the daily Hürriyet through her lawyer, Nesrullah Oğuz, that she was being treated in prison “in a way that will leave permanent damage on my body”. She said she was sleeping in a bed that had previously been urinated in, and that she was not able to get access to her medication.
“My pancreas and digestive system don’t work properly, but my medicine has not been given to me for five days. I am diabetic and I need special nutrition. But in jail I am only able to eat yoghurt,” she said. “Also, even though I suffer from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, I have not been allowed access to open air [since entering prison].”
Her detention has prompted a wave of calls for her release. “With the arrest of one of the nation’s most celebrated and internationally known authors, we can see that no poet, novelist, or playwright is safe in [President] Erdoğan’s Turkey,” said the novelist and translator Maureen Freely, president of English PEN, which is calling for the immediate release of those detained following the raid on Özgür Gündem “solely in connection with their work or peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression”.
A petition calling for Erdoğan’s release has been signed by almost 25,000 people. Describing her as “one of the world’s most notable novelists”, the petition says that “her only wish for her country is to live in a better, more democratic and civilised society”, and that she “produces work towards this wish while promoting Turkish literature globally”.
PEN International said it was “deeply concerned” for her health, describing the conditions in which she is being held as “wholly unacceptable” and calling on the Turkish authorities “to immediately provide better conditions [and] ensure immediate access to medication and to her doctors as a matter of extreme urgency”.
Sahar Halaimzai, PEN International campaigns manager, said: “The crackdown on free speech that we are witnessing in Turkey is unprecedented in the country’s modern history. The attempted coup does not justify the attack against all dissenting and critical voices. Aslı Erdoğan is one of dozens of journalists currently behind bars in Turkey, held in difficult conditions and facing an uncertain fate. We strongly urge the Turkish government to halt this assault on free speech and human rights, and comply with their obligations under international law during this period of emergency.”
Erdoğan told Hürriyet that she was aware of the solidarity being shown for her. “I’m aware that great efforts are being spent. I’m aware of the sincerity and feelings in the messages that I receive. It may sound very vain, but I thank you very much,” she said.
Her arrest follows the Turkish government’s closure of 29 publishers under the state of emergency law. The move has been condemned by publishers around the world, with the PEN International Publishers Circle saying that “while recognising the right of the Turkish authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the failed coup, [we] call on the Turkish authorities not to use the state of emergency to restrict lawful freedom of expression and to ensure that writers and publishers are able to freely carry out their activities”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/26/turkish-novelist-jailed-in-unacceptable-conditions-say-campaigners
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cfc79c41c1c83fb3ea5f3478f809f30fc4511e6c3446cbc5696aa52e1ff3677d.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T20:49:19 | null | 2009-09-09T00:00:00 |
Doctors and nurses at Swindon's Great Western hospital face disciplinary hearings after photographs posted on internet
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk%2F2009%2Fsep%2F09%2Fhospital-lying-down-game.json
|
en
| null |
Hospital staff suspended for playing Facebook 'lying down game'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Staff at a hospital in Swindon, including doctors, have been suspended for allegedly taking part in an internet craze known as the "lying down game" while on duty, an NHS trust said today.
Seven staff remain suspended on full pay after the alleged incident, which is said to have taken place during a night shift on August 14-15.
Doctors and nurses from the Great Western hospital's accident and emergency department and acute assessment unit photographed each other lying face down on resuscitation trolleys, ward floors and on the Wiltshire air ambulance helipad.
The pictures were then posted on social networking site Facebook, where hospital management spotted them. They have now been taken down.
The game involves lying face down with palms flat against the body and toes pointing at the ground.
Alf Troughton, medical director of Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said disciplinary hearings would be held.
"A number of staff were suspended following allegations of unprofessional conduct while on night shift duty in the hospital during a weekend in August," he said.
"This did not involve patients and we are satisfied that at no time was patient care compromised.
"The Great Western Hospital sets high standards for staff behaviour at all times and therefore takes any such breaches extremely seriously.
"It is important to reassure patients and our workforce that this was an isolated incident and staff cover was maintained at all times."
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/sep/09/hospital-lying-down-game
|
en
| 2009-09-09T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/def0fcd36529d04138edd627e87cbbd741380a7c365c0dfab80e4ef77baaa859.json
|
|
[
"Jeremy Hance",
"Martin Rees",
"Simon Lewis"
] | 2016-08-30T20:57:46 | null | 2015-10-19T00:00:00 |
Scientists have been warning for decades that human actions are pushing life on our shared planet toward mass extinction. Such extinction events have occurred five times in the past, but a bold new paper finds that this time would be fundamentally different. Fortunately, there’s still time to stop it.
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2Fradical-conservation%2F2015%2Foct%2F20%2Fthe-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction.json
|
en
| null |
How humans are driving the sixth mass extinction
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Periodically, in the vast spans of time that have preceded us, our planet’s living beings have been purged by planetary catastrophes so extreme they make your typical Ice Age look like the geological equivalent of a stroll in the park. Scientists count just five mass extinctions in an unimaginably long expanse of 450 million years, but they warn we may well be entering a sixth.
According to a bold new paper in The Anthropocene Review, this time would be different from past mass extinctions in four crucial ways – and all of these stem from the impact of a single species that arrived on the scene just 200,000 years ago: Homo sapiens.
“There is no point in apportioning blame for what is happening,” said lead author and geologist, Mark Williams, with the University of Leicester, since humans “didn’t deliberately engineer this situation.”
“Rather we have to recognise that our impact is game-changing on this planet, that we are all responsible, and that we have to become stewards of nature – as a part of it, rather than behaving like children rampaging through a sweetshop,” Williams noted.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Some scientists argue that amphibians are already experiencing a mass extinction. The golden toad has not been seen since 1989 and is believed extinct, possibly due to a combination of habitat loss and the chytrid fungus which has wiped out amphibians around the world. It’s belived the chytrid fungus was delivered via internaitonal travelers. Photograph: Conservation International/PA
The impacts of a still-avoidable sixth mass extinction would likely be so massive they’d be best described as science fiction. It would be catastrophic, widespread and, of course, irreversible. In the past, it has taken life ten to thirty million years to recover after such an extinction, 40 to 120 times as long as modern-looking humans have been telling tales by firelight. Moreover, Williams and his team argue that future changes driven by humanity may go so far as to create not just a new epoch in geologic history – such as the widely-touted Anthropocene – but a fundamental reshaping of Earth on par with the rise of microbes or the later shift from microbes to multicellular organisms.
“Fundamental changes on a planetary system scale have already begun,” said co-author Peter Haff, a geologist and engineer with Duke University. “The very considerable uncertainty is how long these will last – whether they will simply be a brief, unique excursion in Earth history, or whether they will persist and evolve into a new, geologically long-lasting, planetary state.”
But what are these “fundamental changes” that would makes this mass extinction different from the previous five?
“Episodes of global warming, ocean acidification and mass extinction have all happened before, well before humans arrived on the planet,” co-author Jan Zaleasiewicz, a paleobiologist with the University of Leicester, said. “We wanted to see if there was something different about what is happening now.”
Turns out there is.
Meet the four horsemen of the Sixth Mass Extinction
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A firefighter holds a water pipe as they extinguish a fire on burned peatlands in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia. The air pollution or haze has been an annual problem for the past 18 years in Indonesia. It’s caused by the illegal burning of forest and peat fires on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo to clear new land for the production of pulp, paper and palm oil. Singapore and Malaysia have offered to help the Indonesian government to fight against the fires, as infants and their mothers are evacuated to escape the record pollution levels. Photograph: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images
The team of geologists and biologists say that our current extinction crisis is unique in Earth’s history due to four characteristics: the spread of non-native species around the world; a single species (us) taking over a significant percentage of the world’s primary production; human actions increasingly directing evolution; and the rise of something called the technosphere.
The first real change is what the authors of the study call the “global homogenisation of flora and fauna.” Basically what this means is that you can eat tomatoes in Italy, hunt oryx in Texas, ride horses in Chile, curse cane toads in Australia, dig earthworms in eastern North America and catch rats in the Galapagos. None of these things would have been possible without human intervention: our penchant for globetrotting has brought innumerable species to new habitats, often wreaking havoc on existing ecological communities and sometimes leading to extinctions.
Secondly, over the last few centuries, humans have essentially become the top predator not only on land, but also across the sea. No other species in the past can claim such a distinction. In doing so, humanity has begun using 25 to 40% of the planet’s net primary production for its own purposes. Moreover, we have added to this the use of fossil fuels for energy, essentially mining primary production from the past.
“It’s not hubris to say this,” Williams contended. “Never before have animal and plants (and other organisms for that matter) been translocated on a global scale around the planet. Never before has one species dominated primary production in the manner that we do. Never before has one species remodelled the terrestrial biosphere so dramatically to serve its own ends – the huge amount of biomass in the animals we eat.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thousands of shark fins line a street, obstructing traffic in Hong Kong, China. Sharks have long been one of the top predators in the oceans, but they have been usurped by humans. Today, they are among the most threatened of marine species worldwide due to overfishing largely for their fins. Photograph: Paul Hilton/Paul Hilton/EPA/Corbis
Thirdly, humanity has become a massive force in directing evolution. This is most apparent, of course, in the domestication of animals and the cultivation of crops over thousands of years. But humans are directing evolution in numerous other ways, as well.
“We are directly manipulating genomes by artificial selection and molecular techniques, and indirectly by managing ecosystems and populations to conserve them,” said co-author Erle Ellis, an expert on the Anthropocene with the University of Maryland. He added that even conservation is impacting evolution.
I would argue that domesticated animals and plants, as well as humans, are parts of the technosphere. Peter Haff
“As human management of ecosystems and populations increases, even when aimed at conservation, evolutionary processes are altered. To sustain processes of evolution that are not guided by human societies intentionally and unintentionally will require a sea change in management approaches.”
Finally, the current extinction crisis is being amplified by what the researchers call the technosphere.
Technosphere?
Peter Haff coined the term technosphere just last year. He defines the technosphere as “the global, energy consuming techno-social system that is comprised of humans, technological artifacts, and technological systems, together with the links, protocols and information that bind all these parts together.”
Basically, the technosphere is the vast, sprawling combination of humanity and its technology. Haff argues that in our thousands of years of harnessing technology – including the first technologies like stone tools, wheels and crops – the technology itself has basically begun to act practically independently, creating a new sphere (i.e., like the biosphere or atmosphere or lithosphere), but like nothing the planet has ever seen before.
“I would argue that domesticated animals and plants, as well as humans, are parts of the technosphere,” said Haff. “These are in effect manufactured by the technosphere for its own use on the basis of genetic blueprints appropriated from the biosphere.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Electronic waste in Agbogbloshie dump, Accra, Ghana. E-waste trash pickers risk their health in search of metals they can sell. Photograph: Andrew McConnell / Alamy/Alamy
We’ve reached a point, according to Haff, where we can’t just shut technology off. As such, the technosphere as a whole is elevated above humanity.
“In this sense, the technosphere already generates its own living tissue, thus integrating with biology,” noted Haff.
Although, humans were the original progenitors of this technology, we have, in effect, lost control. Like Doctor Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s great novel, not only has our creation asserted its own agency, but it now wields its power over us.
Although the paper relies heavily on the idea of the technosphere as a primary driver of both the extinction crisis and current geological changes, not every researcher in the study agreed with the idea.
“I am a dissenter on the use of this term...I would have eliminated it if it were up to me alone. I find the term ‘technosphere’ neither appropriate nor accurate...It makes it appear that technology is the defining element of human alteration of the Earth system,” Ellis said, adding that “humans and societies create and sustain technologies, not the other way around – though of course there is a tight coupling of societies with technologies.”
Ellis called such an idea not only “inaccurate,” but defeatist.
“[The concept of the technosphere] is politically and socially disenfranchising and alienating people and societies - and their potential to guide, at least to some degree, this global human force behind the anthropocene.”
To Ellis the key is not the rise of technology, but rather humanity’s incredibly rich social life. He maintains that our “ultrasocialness” is the major driving force behind the changes on the planet we are witnessing today.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pig carcasses hanging in an abattoir in Yorkshire, England. Demand for meat, which is rising globally, is a significant driver of deforestation, habitat destruction and climate change. Photograph: FLPA/John Eveson/REX
“It was behaviorally modern humans, with their ultrasocial behaviors and complex societies that spread across the Earth, became increasingly larger scale societies, ultimately gaining the capacity to transform the entire Earth. Technology is not the driver of Earth system change – social change is the cause of this.”
But Haff insists that technology, not modern humans, is the “new and enabling ingredient” for global transformation – including the potential for mass extinction.
“The technosphere is not meant as a stand in or short hand for a supposed ‘novel human force’ in the earth system,” he explained. “The name ‘technosphere’ arose in part to discourage such an idea. There exists no such human force. What is present, and novel, is the collective system of many people and much technology.”
Like Nothing the Earth Has Ever Seen
Regardless of whether scientists stress the role of humans or technology in transforming the planet, the researchers all agree that the arrival of modern Homo sapiens has transformed the planet. But how much?
“If humans were to go extinct tomorrow, then our impact on the biosphere would be recognisable as an epoch boundary – like the boundary between the Pleistocene and Holocene,” Williams pointed out. “After us, a few tens to hundreds of thousands of years in the future, the biosphere would find a new equilibrium without us, and probably with its biodiversity largely intact.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trucks and machinery along routes within the Suncore Oil Sands site near to Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta. Canada’s tar sands is one of the largest industrial projects on the planet, turning boreal forest, rivers and bogs into a scarred landscape. Photograph: David Levene
Or as the paper puts it: “if the technosphere were to collapse what would remain is physical evidence of its history, as a preserved stratigraphic signal in the rocks. This will include a short-lived event bed of ‘urban strata’ and related deposits, recording rapid technospheric evolution and deep roots via preserved tunnels, mines and boreholes; a climate perturbation that might last [100-200,000 years] and a permanent reconfiguration of the biosphere...resulting from the effect of trans-global species invasions and a moderate- to large-scale mass extinction event.”
Okay, but what if we don’t go extinct anytime soon?
There is no ‘ending’: the challenges of the Anthropocene are permanent. Humanity and nature are inextricably coupled. Erle Ellis
“If the changes made to the biosphere by humans continue to accelerate and are sustainable, and if our interaction with the technosphere becomes a major component of Earth’s future trajectory, then the changes can be argued to be really fundamental,” Williams added.
The scientists argue then that the changes would be so extreme, and so unlike anything that the Earth has ever seen before, that it could represent a geological shift as big as the rise of microbes on the planet or the rise of multicellular organisms. For example, imagine a world where humans and their technology effectively control the global temperature through geo-engineering or a world where humans wholeheartedly and deliberately manipulate evolution for their own (or the technosphere’s) ends.
Zaleasiewicz said that while some researchers argue that such changes could turn out all right, most argue the still-developing Anthropocene “will mostly be a very bumpy ride for humanity, and for life in general, as it evolves,” adding that “previous perturbations of the Earth system have seen both winners and losers, so perhaps that is a more realistic scenario.”
So, WTF Do We DO?
The researchers are clear: we can’t go back in time, to some pre-human, arguably pristine environment.
“There is no ‘ending’: the challenges of the Anthropocene are permanent,” said Ellis. “Humanity and nature are inextricably coupled for the foreseeable future.”
Moreover, according to Zaleasiewicz, the momentum is not on our side.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The dead body of a Indian rhinoceros, which was killed by poachers this year in Assam, India. Several rhino species are on the edge of extinction due to demand for their horns. Photograph: Anuwar Ali Hazarika / Barcroft I/Anuwar Hazarika / Barcroft India
“There’s clearly a rapidly moving – and accelerating – dynamic involved, and it can be argued that this is needed and inevitable to feed, clothe and shelter and extra two to three billion people over the next few decades.”
However, even with all that, the scientists say it’s not too late to avoid a total mass extinction and ecological meltdown.
“We are not in a mass extinction event yet, and it’s very important to emphasise that, because it means we can still make changes,” said Williams.
The scientists agree that to avoid mass extinction – and tackle the current environmental crisis – is possible but will require large-scale changes not only in how society operates but how humans view their relation to the natural world.
“It’s about recognising that we are stewards of nature and that every action we make will have an effect on the biosphere somewhere,” said Williams. “If at a very basic level we could get people to make that connection then we would have fundamentally changed human behavior.”
But how do we do this?
“I think there are parallels with getting people to recognize that ‘drunk driving’ is a mistake or ‘wearing a seatbelt is a good thing,’” Williams went on. “I remember the campaigns from the 1970s and though this might sound glib, it’s fundamental to the problem. Humans are the problem, but they are also the solution.”
Ellis agreed that humans must move on from the view that we are somehow separate from nature (or that nature somehow exists separate from us) and, instead, embrace our role as “permanent shapers and stewards of the biosphere and the species within it.”
He also sees several positive trends underway, including urbanisation, rising awareness of the plight of biodiversity, the increasing potential for societies to create change at large scales and the possibility of decoupling of the global economy from ecosystem destruction.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin, was declared functionally extinct in 2006. The species, which has swam the Yangtze for some 20 million years, was the first cetacean to go extinct due to human activities. Overfishing, habitat destruction, electrofishing, boat traffic, dam-building and pollution all likely played a role in the species’ demise. Photograph: AFP
“Still, the large scale of modern societies is daunting,” Ellis cautioned, “and for these trends to reach their full potential will require far greater strategic effort – just letting things happen will not yield a better future.”
According to him practical solutions “will require a combination of conservation, restoration, rewilding, engineering, emergence, and design.”
“We must recognize that there is no option to ‘leave the Earth alone,’ “ Ellis added. “The responsibility for the future of the planet is ours now.”
It’s a big responsibility – bigger than any other species on Earth has ever faced – and so far we’ve hardly proved ourselves up to it. But there is still time. And time means hope – but not without action.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction
|
en
| 2015-10-19T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f150c652a0f18703ef30dcec1da8deb12f00bc2e88fbaaca25f1d0d4e7ad8e33.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-30T08:50:09 | null | 2016-08-30T07:17:37 |
Broadcaster says charity’s ‘disgraceful purchase’ of land in Lake District could threaten rare breed of sheep
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fmelvyn-bragg-accuses-national-trust-of-bullying-in-farm-row.json
|
en
| null |
Melvyn Bragg accuses National Trust of bullying in farm row
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg has accused the National Trust of bullying after it acquired a piece of land in the Lake District that could threaten a farm that upholds an agricultural tradition going back thousands of years.
The charity last month bought Thorneythwaite Farm in Borrowdale, near Keswick, which has a flock of 413 Herdwick sheep, a rare breed that the author Beatrix Potter once helped save from extinction.
But the trust did not buy the farmhouse and there are now concerns about what will happen to the sheep, which are owned by the charity. The Times said its actions had upset residents of Borrowdale and farmers who had hoped to buy the house and land and keep it running as a working farm.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Herdwick ram is prepared for showing at the annual Keswick Tup fair. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Lord Bragg, a native of Cumbria, lambasted the trust’s actions, branding it a “disgraceful purchase” and a “nasty piece of work”, adding that its opening bid of £200,000 above the £750,000 guide price to put off other potential buyers was “straight out of the mafia”.
In a letter to the Times, he accused the National Trust of behaving badly and accused its director-general, Dame Helen Ghosh, of behaving “dictatorially”.
He said: “Had a billionaire bullied his way into this disgraceful purchase there would have been a deserved outcry.”
Bragg highlighted the Lake District’s historic farming system and rare native Herdwick sheep as being key to its nomination for recognition as a Unesco World Heritage site.
He said: “If the increasingly arrogant National Trust is there to protect anything of our past surely this is a prime example.”
He added: “The National Trust is about to destroy what centuries of working men and women have created. It used a shameful manoeuvre to achieve its aim. Who can check this bullying charity?”
A spokesman for the trust said it wanted the 303 acres of land for its value to wildlife, telling the Times: “We believe we can look after this land in a way that benefits nature, visitors and the local community.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/30/melvyn-bragg-accuses-national-trust-of-bullying-in-farm-row
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/92b40132bcdd3713b1854be10ecbc6ea473b1de97d55ea688af54e5aa0e8e996.json
|
|
[
"Reuters In New York"
] | 2016-08-30T00:52:15 | null | 2016-08-30T00:45:43 |
Officials say ‘premeditated and celebrity-seeking nature’ of crime outweighs arguments in favour of release, 36 years after Beatle was shot in New York City
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmusic%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fmark-chapman-john-lennons-killer-loses-ninth-parole-appeal.json
|
en
| null |
Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, loses ninth parole appeal
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The man who shot and killed John Lennon in New York City nearly 36 years ago has again failed to persuade a state parole board to release him from prison on parole.
Mark David Chapman, 61, will remain behind bars at a maximum-security prison in Erie county near Buffalo, New York, after his request for parole was rejected for the ninth time since 2000.
Chapman, an obsessed fan of the musician and his former group the Beatles, was convicted of shooting Lennon as he arrived with his wife, Yoko Ono, at his apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on 8 December 1980.
Bad vibraciones! The pop songs Franco didn’t want Spain to hear Read more
Chapman received a sentence of 20 years to life after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. His petition for parole has come up every two years since 2000.
“In spite of many favourable factors, we find all to be outweighed by the premeditated and celebrity-seeking nature of the crime,” the New York Board of Parole said in a statement on Monday.
“From our interview and review of your records, we find that your release would be incompatible with the welfare of society and would so deprecate that seriousness of the crime as to undermine respect for the law.”
Chapman will next appear for a parole hearing in August 2018, according to online state records.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/30/mark-chapman-john-lennons-killer-loses-ninth-parole-appeal
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3972cd81ee55fab988002bf6ed88a41f371f9230cfb41d062870016f6f56a28f.json
|
|
[
"Patrick Collinson",
"William Keegan",
"Graham Ruddick",
"Aditya Chakrabortty"
] | 2016-08-26T13:29:35 | null | 2016-08-06T06:00:26 |
Annuities were compulsory until the then chancellor freed pensioners to do what they liked with their money. Today, the income from them is pitiful
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fblog%2F2016%2Faug%2F06%2Fgeorge-osborne-pensioners-annuity-income.json
|
en
| null |
A big thank you to George Osborne - from the pensioners of Britain
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It’s not a line you’re likely to see often in the Guardian, but thank you George Osborne for the towering achievement of your reign as chancellor: you got rid of annuities and saved millions of pensioners-to-be from a spiral of catastrophically low payouts from their life savings.
Annuities, for those not in the know, are an income for life. The idea is that at retirement you swap your pension savings accumulated while at work for an agreed fixed income, paid out every year until you die. They used to be compulsory until Osborne stunned the £12bn-a-year industry, freeing retirees to do what they like with their money.
Today, annuity incomes have fallen to near-invisible levels. That’s because they are influenced by two things: the level of interest rates; and the longevity prospects of the population. This week’s Bank of England base rate cut – and the prospect of negative interest rates – have pushed the incomes paid on annuities to levels unthinkable even a few years ago.
I got a quote for annuity this week, assuming I had saved a total of £100,000, that I was 64, that my partner was 64, that we were both in good health and that on death, my partner would receive an income of 50% of the original annuity, with a small degree of inflation protection as well. I also assumed we’d take the 25% tax-free lump sum first (ie: £25,000). So what did I get for my remaining £75,000? A lousy £2,183 a year. If I had saved a gargantuan £500,000, my annual income would still be under £11,000 a year. Count your blessings, you millionaires who have a final salary-based pension, now largely confined to the public sector. A £20,000 a year pension is equal to nearly £1m in savings across a lifetime. The average male GP retiring at 60 years old picks up a pension of around £47,000 a year, which is equal to having put away savings of around £2.5m across their working life. The chances of workers with new-style stock market-based schemes saving anywhere near £2.5m are slim, to say the least. The typical sum used to buy an annuity before compulsion was abolished was around £40,000.
Annuity rates hit all-time low as pension freedoms introduced Read more
Annuities are now so bad that in the example of our 64-year-old with £75,000, they would have to survive to 98 years old just to get their money back (although they would have benefited from inflation protection).
So we must be thankful that we no longer have to buy these products. But what do we do instead? The historic rule of thumb is that the “safe” level of drawdown is 4% a year, which in our example of a £75,000 pot equates to around £3,000 a year. But you should start “de-cumulating” as you get older – in other words, start drawing down capital as well as the income from your life savings. So maybe that £75,000 can creep up towards an income of £4,000 a year.
There are fears that 4% drawdown is too ambitious when the base rate is just 0.25% and the best cash Isas pay around 1.3%-1.4% (for now). That said, the FTSE 100 yields an annual dividend income of 3.85%, equity income funds yield 4.1% and peer-to-peer lenders give you 5% or more. Don’t lose all hope quite yet.
Meanwhile, final salary (and even “career average”) schemes are looking ruinously expensive. The deficits in the schemes have widened again with this week’s rate cut. How long before the contracts underlying these schemes are broken?
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/aug/06/george-osborne-pensioners-annuity-income
|
en
| 2016-08-06T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a09e6eca8ebaee55a6546e2547b32854ef13e35241dd7751bea1d8bb5d211045.json
|
|
[
"Jamie Doward"
] | 2016-08-27T20:51:16 | null | 2016-08-27T19:01:11 |
Police are due to release Kevin Mallon after his arrest earlier this month in connection with an alleged Olympic ticket-touting operation
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fbrazil-free-irish-sport-boss-rio-tickets.json
|
en
| null |
Brazil to free Irish sports boss held over Rio tickets
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A sports hospitality boss arrested by police in Rio over an alleged ticket touting operation is due to be released from preventative detention, his company has said.
Kevin Mallon, a director of THG Sports, has been in custody in Brazil since 5 August, after being arrested in relation to Olympic tickets seized in a Rio hotel – some of which were part of the Irish allocation and were for the opening and closing ceremonies and the football final.
The Olympic Council of Ireland’s authorised ticket reseller is Dublin-based PRO10 Sports Management.
THG insists it had legitimate customers for its tickets and that Mallon was acting as their collection agent, meeting clients. THG and PRO10 deny any wrongdoing over ticket sales.
“Following intensive efforts by our lawyers in Brazil, THG welcomes the news that our colleague Kevin Mallon is shortly to be released from preventative detention in Rio,” THG said in a statement. “In line with our previous statements on this matter, THG has welcomed the public inquiry in Ireland into these matters and believes that the company and its executives will be vindicated when all of the evidence is reviewed.”
Mallon has been held alongside OCI president Pat Hickey, whose family last week urged the Irish government to intervene over his “degrading and humiliating” ordeal.
The 71-year-old Hickey was arrested at a hotel in the Barra da Tijuca area earlier this month. Rio police said he has been formally accused under Brazilian law of ticket touting, running a cartel and illicit marketing. Hickey has denied any wrongdoing.Through a solicitor, his family said they were extremely concerned about the manner of his arrest, his detention in the high-security Bangu prison, and the impact on his health.
They also voiced worries about “pre-trial disclosure of what is purported to be evidence to the media” and Hickey’s “right to a fair hearing, given the prejudicial way in which he has been treated to date”.
Hickey has temporarily stepped aside from his roles as OCI president and a member of the International Olympic Committee’s ruling executive board.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/27/brazil-free-irish-sport-boss-rio-tickets
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e7764799e064c9618feaa2172a5c7013998ab65e459ba80afc8c3631ae1bf72f.json
|
|
[
"William Fotheringham"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:11 | null | 2016-08-21T05:00:08 |
Comfort and a smooth ride courtesy of Epic
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2F2016%2Faug%2F21%2Fnero-corsa-evo-bike-preview.json
|
en
| null |
Nero Corsa Evo: bike preview
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Carbon-fibre frames are increasingly cheap. This is partly down to local dealers sourcing their own lines of bikes from the factory, as Ludlow bike shop Epic does with its Nero brand. It is also because development is so rapid that what was top of the tree two years ago is now mid-range, and so on down the line. Epic’s top-of-the-range Corsa Evo comes with custom componentry: ours had Shimano’s 600 groupset. The finish is suitably shiny with appetising details – notably a logo on the seat tube where the rider sitting on your wheel can spot it. Strengthened areas of carbon around the brackets make the frame stiffer without sacrificing comfort. The smooth ride is also thanks to the Ikon handbuilt carbon wheels. This good high-end bike does everything it should.
Price: from £1,399 (as reviewed £2,699)
Frame: carbon-fibre
Gears: Shimano Ultegra Di2
Weight: 7.45kg
http://epic-cycles.co.uk
|
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/21/nero-corsa-evo-bike-preview
|
en
| 2016-08-21T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8d4c986446c904026e237d67f0fe251f13c8f053a4240f9df26ee1da9eb0e070.json
|
|
[
"Matthew Weaver",
"Graham Ruddick",
"Dan Milmo",
"Owen Jones"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:27 | null | 2016-08-26T10:45:30 |
Despite row with party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Virgin is offering a discount on train tickets to Liverpool for Labour’s annual conference
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fvirgin-trains-teams-up-with-labour-to-offer-discounts-and-a-seat.json
|
en
| null |
Virgin Trains 'teams up' with Labour to offer discounts (and a seat)
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
While Jeremy Corbyn has been engaged in a public spat with Virgin Trains, it has emerged that his party has “teamed up” with the company to offer discount tickets to Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool next month.
On Tuesday Virgin Trains denied that Corbyn was forced to sit on the floor of what he claimed was a “ram-packed” train from London to Newcastle on his way to a Labour leadership debate in Gateshead. When the company questioned Corbyn’s integrity by issuing CCTV images of empty seats on the train, some of the Labour leader’s supporters called for a boycott of Virgin’s products and services.
Others suggested that Virgin’s attempt to undermine Corbyn were motivated by his support for renationalising the railways.
But far from shunning the company, Labour has done a deal with Virgin to give its members a 20% discount on Virgin train tickets to Liverpool during the party annual conference in the city. In the latest twist to the traingate saga, Labour said it had “teamed up with Virgin Trains to offer an exclusive discount on rail travel to all attendees of annual conference 2016.”
For its part Virgin said: “Labour’s annual conference is one of the high profile political events in Europe. Attracting over 10,000 people, it’s the ideal place to network, share great ideas and an opportunity to mingle with like-minded people.”
It even suggested that party delegates who took up the offer would get a seat on the trains.
Labour conference in peril as G4S rules out last-minute deal Read more
It said: “With regular trains from London Euston, we can get you straight to Liverpool in just 2hrs 14mins, giving you the time to put your feet up or make those last-minute preparations. Our trains will deliver you to the heart of Liverpool arriving fresh and prepared.”
Earlier this week Corbyn’s campaign director, Sam Tarry, said that by highlighting the row on his Twitter feed Branson had helped fuel the public’s desire to bring back the railways into public ownership. He also described Branson as a tax exile who was “laughing all the way to the bank”.
Asked about the Labour deal with Virgin, Tarry told the Guardian he was not aware of it. He added: “I’m not an official for the Labour party, I’m for Jeremy’s campaign.”
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/26/virgin-trains-teams-up-with-labour-to-offer-discounts-and-a-seat
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3c6b095e861668b1608ac9115131c10f4ac3373c22b3e44f48bfebf52226007f.json
|
|
[
"Karen Mcveigh",
"Charles B Anthony"
] | 2016-08-28T14:51:37 | null | 2016-08-16T13:59:06 |
Labour leader is filmed during trip from London to Newcastle, on his way to meet Owen Smith for leadership hustings
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F16%2Fjeremy-corbyn-floor-three-hour-train-journey-london-newcastle.json
|
en
| null |
Corbyn joins seatless commuters on floor for three-hour train journey
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Spending a busy train journey without a seat, crushed up against other commuters in the aisle, or crouched uncomfortably in the luggage compartment is an all-too-common experience for many. But you don’t expect to spot the leader of the opposition on the floor of a train on your way to work.
Jeremy Corbyn, famed for standing up for his principles, sat down for them last week, along with 20 other seatless commuters on a three-hour train journey from London to Newcastle.
Jeremy Corbyn interview: ‘There are not 300,000 sectarian extremists at large’ Read more
In a video shot as he was on his way to debate with Owen Smith in the Labour leadership hustings in Gateshead, Corbyn is seen sitting on the floor of the train, a coffee and brown paper bag at his feet, reading Private Eye. The freelance filmmaker Yannis Mendez, who has been following Corbyn and volunteers for his campaign, filmed the footage.
From his spot on the floor, which he chose rather than upgrading to first class, Corbyn turns to the camera and says: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day, commuters and long-distance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed. The staff are absolutely brilliant, working really hard to help everybody.
“The reality is there are not enough trains, we need more of them – and they’re also incredibly expensive.” He said the whole experience was a good case for public ownership.
Later, Corbyn said: “Is it fair that I should upgrade my ticket whilst others who might not be able to afford such a luxury should have to sit on the floor? It’s their money I would be spending after all.”
Ellen, a mother-of-two who travelled on the same train and and also had no seat, said: “It was a surprise to see him there, but it was refreshing. It made me realise that it shouldn’t be a surprise to see a politician travelling alongside average commuters. They should be on the same level as the general public.”
It is not the first time Corbyn has experienced the reality of Britain’s transport woes. During the 2015 leadership campaign he was spotted on a night bus after a day’s campaigning:
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/16/jeremy-corbyn-floor-three-hour-train-journey-london-newcastle
|
en
| 2016-08-16T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/63276dd88ca83dda91a707b7dadaa1dfdfcc6589fde2b21c0824c463a6ed8136.json
|
|
[
"Ian Sample"
] | 2016-08-29T04:59:13 | null | 2013-01-07T00:00:00 |
Trip to Mars in pretend spaceship on Moscow industrial estate affects sleep, activity levels and motivation of six-man crew
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2013%2Fjan%2F07%2Ffake-mission-mars-astronauts-spaced-out.json
|
en
| null |
Fake mission to Mars leaves astronauts spaced out
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
As the cheerless skies and grim economy sap all will to return to work, take heart that even on a trip to Mars, it is hard to get out of bed in the morning.
The drudge of interplanetary travel has emerged from research on six men who joined the longest simulated space mission ever: a 17-month round trip to the red planet in a pretend spaceship housed at a Moscow industrial estate.
Though chosen for the job as the best of the best, the would-be spacefarers spent more and more time under their duvets and sitting around idle as the mission wore on. The crew's activity levels plummeted in the first three months, and continued to fall for the next year.
On the return leg, the men spent nearly 700 hours longer in bed than on the outward journey, and only perked up in the last 20 days before they clambered from their capsule in November 2011. Four crew members suffered from sleep or psychological issues.
"We saw some problems," said Mathias Basner, of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the effects of sleep-loss on behaviour. "There were no major adverse events, but there could have been if the stars were aligned in a certain way."
The $10m (£6.2m) Mars500 project, run by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems, launched, metaphorically, when the hatch to the mock-up spaceship closed behind three Russians, two Europeans and a Chinese man in June 2010. The men spent the next 520 days in windowless isolation. Their only contact with the outside world was over the internet and by phone lines that carried a delay of up to 20 minutes, to mimic the time it takes radio waves to reach Mars from Earth.
Throughout the mission, the men endured daily medical, physical and psychological examinations, to help space agencies learn how humans cope with the stress, confinement and limited company that astronauts will face on future voyages. The crew fought boredom by watching DVDs, reading books and playing Guitar Hero on a games console. Mission controllers faked a fire and a power outage to keep them alert.
The ESA selected the crew from thousands of highly qualified applicants, and put them through a year of intensive training. But despite embodying "the right stuff" that underpins the astronaut corps, the men struggled with the tedium of the mission.
"The monotony of going to Mars and coming back again is something that will need to be addressed in the future. You don't want your crew hanging around doing nothing," Basner said.
On a real mission, sedentary astronauts would be at greater risk of bone and muscle wastage.
According to the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, some crew members fared worse than others. One began living a 25-hour day, and quickly fell out of routine with the others. "If you live on a 25-hour day, after twelve days it's the middle of the night for you when it's daytime for everyone else," Basner said.
Another crew member slept at night but took ever longer naps during the day. Taken together, the two men spent a fifth of their time, or 2,500 hours, asleep when the rest of the crew were awake, or vice-versa. "That cannot be good for mission success, because mission-critical tasks will be scheduled for the day," Basner said.
A third crew member slept so badly he suffered chronic sleep deprivation and single-handedly accounted for the majority of mistakes made on a computer test used to measure concentration and alertness. "He was falling apart in terms of his attention system," Basner said. In a second study, not yet published, the team describes a fourth crew member who was developing mild depression.
"Only two of the men adapted well to the mission. Of the other four, there was at least one major reason for concern, where we would ask, should we really send someone like this on a long mission," Basner said.
For the 17 months of the mission to nowhere the crew had control over the amount of exercise they took, their meals, and the levels of ambient lighting. The right lighting is crucial to keep people on a regular sleep and wake cycle.
Improved lighting to mimic day and night could help some astronauts cope with long missions, but the results point to a need for tests that can spot astronauts who are vulnerable to sleep disorders, Basner said.
Steven Lockley, a neuroscientist who specialises in sleep medicine at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston, said the study raised concerns about long-term space missions.
"Having some of the six crew members with different schedules, and different amounts of sleep, would likely make for poor team performance and increased risk of accidents and injuries in a real-life situation," he told the Guardian.
Astronauts on a trip to Mars would probably face even worse problems if they spent time on the surface of the planet, because the length of the Martian day is slightly longer than an Earth day. "The deleterious effects on sleep, performance, psychological health and physical health would likely have been much worse had the subjects been required to live on a 24.65-hour day," Lockley said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/07/fake-mission-mars-astronauts-spaced-out
|
en
| 2013-01-07T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/21ce430c1b5dc30a503b5532466eb98cfac548bfffbb136d86fe32f3435db4b8.json
|
|
[
"Stuart Clark"
] | 2016-08-26T13:27:42 | null | 2016-08-25T20:30:21 |
Spacewatch: Persistence pays off after messages finally get through to drifting solar observatory
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fspacecraft-makes-contact-after-months-silence-spacewatch.json
|
en
| null |
Lost Nasa spacecraft breaks silence after 22 months
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A lost Nasa spacecraft “phoned home” after 22 months of silence this week. Stereo-B (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a twin to Stereo-A, and together they have been studying the Sun since 2006.
Although planned to last just two years, the mission had been working so well that ground controllers and scientists kept the spacecraft going. The data returned has given unprecedented insights into solar storms, which can threaten the electrical systems of satellites around Earth.
The twin spacecraft gave different views of the Sun, one being sent ahead of Earth while the other lagged behind. As the years have gone by, so the spacecraft have drifted further apart. It was during preparations for them to pass behind the Sun and out of communications with Earth that the malfunction took place.
Esa’s Solar Orbiter mission passes crucial milestone Read more
To test the computer reboot system that kicks in when the spacecraft are out of range, mission controllers purposely triggered the response on 14 October 2014. Although Stereo-A came back on line, Stereo-B sent back fragmentary messages and then fell silent.
Piecing data together, engineers traced the malfunction to a guidance unit that was erroneously convinced that the spacecraft was tumbling. This made thrusters fire, which indeed set the spacecraft rolling.
Having diagnosed the problem, engineers have been sending commands “blind” to tell the on-board computer to disregard the signals from the faulty guidance unit, to conserve battery power and finally to try transmitting back to Earth.
On Monday evening, Nasa’s Deep Space Network locked on to the signal from Stereo-B. Now the spacecraft is back, engineers are performing a complete check-out of its systems and instruments.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/25/spacecraft-makes-contact-after-months-silence-spacewatch
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/dbcbd20af29f3a0f1ffe27133bfa9d7f3742937a468431f62252cda914b73b70.json
|
|
[
"Observer Sport"
] | 2016-08-27T10:50:58 | null | 2016-08-27T09:46:27 |
The former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has been appointed by the Chinese Super League side Hebei China Fortune
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fmanuel-pellegrini-chinese-super-league-hebei-china-fortune-manchester-city.json
|
en
| null |
Manuel Pellegrini appointed by Chinese Super League side Hebei China Fortune
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The former Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has been appointed by the Chinese Super League side Hebei China Fortune.
Premier League: transfer window summer 2016 – interactive Read more
Pellegrini, who was replaced by Pep Guardiola in June despite winning the Premier League in 2014 and guiding Manchester City to the semi-finals of the Champions League last season, is the latest high-profile manager to move to the booming Chinese Super League, joining Luis Felipe Scolari and Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Currently fifth in the Chinese Super League with seven matches remaining, Hebei’s squad includes the former Arsenal striker Gervinho, the one-time Chelsea youngster Gaël Kakuta and Argentina’s Ezequiel Lavezzi.
Pellegrini had previously hinted his desire to remain in the Premier League and also told the Guardian in May that he would consider retiring if he did not receive an offer that interested him.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/manuel-pellegrini-chinese-super-league-hebei-china-fortune-manchester-city
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9daa305e8e88935d49497b1c235275113ad7af57000e4ab8e7784ef396289685.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:29:05 | null | 2016-08-12T06:00:15 |
Three years away means my skills and experience are deemed irrelevant, so where can I go from here?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F12%2Fi-left-the-fashion-industry-after-being-fired-now-i-want-to-go-back.json
|
en
| null |
I left the fashion industry after being fired, now I want to go back
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Twice a week we publish problems that will feature in a forthcoming Dear Jeremy advice column in the Saturday Guardian so that readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy’s own insights. Here is the latest dilemma – what are your thoughts?
Three and a half years ago I was abruptly fired from a job I had worked in for just short of a year. It was demanding and high-pressured, and I was proud of the work I had accomplished, but I accept that under my watch a deadline was missed.
The firing process was humiliating, leading me to avoid applying for jobs. After about six months I did get a job (the only one I got an interview for), which was lower in pay, skill level and away from the fashion industry I had previously spent seven years in. But it allowed me to remain financially independent.
I worked there for two years, choosing to leave in the hope of going back to the industry I loved.
Although my confidence has slowly increased, it continually takes a knock. Having spent more than three years out of the fashion industry, my skills and experience have been rendered irrelevant by recruiters. I have no problem with taking on lower-level roles and working my way back up, but it seems to receive responses such as “weird” and “why?” considering my previous managerial position.
I am too old for graduate schemes and cannot apply for internships for the same reason. I have also sought help from a career adviser, and my CV was reorganised to no increased success.
I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I may no longer have a career in the industry after exhausting contacts, but I don’t know what roles to apply for to be taken as a serious candidate. I don’t know where I can go from this.
Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/12/i-left-the-fashion-industry-after-being-fired-now-i-want-to-go-back
|
en
| 2016-08-12T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/77ad834dccdec5f043ec980b11d71c5b2ecd62a707121c7fb0fee26c7da265d1.json
|
|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-31T08:53:00 | null | 2016-08-31T08:35:54 |
Alex Hales speaks at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Tuesday after hitting a record-breaking 171 runs in England’s ODI win over Pakistan
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Falex-hales-who-knows-the-limits-of-what-england-can-achieve-video.json
|
en
| null |
Alex Hales: who knows the limits of what England can achieve - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Alex Hales speaks at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Tuesday after hitting 171 runs in England’s ODI win over Pakistan, a new one day record for an England batsman. As a collective, the England side also set a new record for the most total runs in the format, with 444 after 50 overs. Hales says it was a special day and that England will continue to improve. Photograph by Stu Forster/Getty Images
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2016/aug/31/alex-hales-who-knows-the-limits-of-what-england-can-achieve-video
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/80babf04b0a6e3dc6bc639b2385d70e719dcdedc251ddb720710e4beec7237c5.json
|
|
[
"Kate Lyons",
"Graham Ruddick",
"Dan Milmo",
"Owen Jones"
] | 2016-08-28T18:49:57 | null | 2016-08-28T17:19:00 |
Sam Tarry hits back after Sunday Times reports that he does not live in east London borough where he is a local councillor
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fcorbyn-adviser-sam-tarry-denies-claims-electoral-fraud-barking-address.json
|
en
| null |
Corbyn adviser denies claims of electoral fraud over registered address
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A senior aide to Jeremy Corbyn has hit back after allegations by the Sunday Times that he is engaging in electoral fraud by claiming to live in Barking, east London, where he is a councillor, while really living in Brighton with his wife.
Sam Tarry, who is Corbyn’s leadership campaign director and spoke up for the Labour leader during the “Traingate” row last week, denied claims of improper behaviour regarding his second home in Brighton.
“This allegation is categorically untrue,” Tarry said. “The evidence irrefutably demonstrates I meet all residency requirements set out in electoral law to be a councillor in Barking and Dagenham.
“My wife, whom I married in June this year, lives in Brighton and works as a junior doctor. Like many people these days we try to strike a balance between our careers and our personal lives.
“Unfortunately this means we cannot live together as a husband and wife every day as we one day hope to do. When you serve people in the NHS or as a local councillor that’s a choice that sometimes has to be made.
“Those promoting this story for political reasons tried to use the same false allegations against me before, and I was completely cleared by the police.”
Similar questions about Tarry’s residency were raised in 2014 when it was claimed he had given inaccurate details on his nomination papers. Police later dropped the investigation.
The Sunday Times alleged that while Tarry says he lives in a flat in Barking, where he was elected as a councillor in May 2014, he actually lives in a £550,000 house in Brighton with his wife.
The Brighton address is on their marriage certificate and Land Registry records show that Tarry and his wife, Julia Fozard, jointly own the property, said the Sunday Times.
The newspaper also reported that a trade union official, named Elly Baker, lived at the Barking flat. Tarry’s lawyers said she was his lodger.
To serve on a council, a councillor must sign an official declaration that they live or work in the area they represent.
Tarry said the Sunday Times’s allegations were false and that he provided the newspaper with a full statement on Saturday, which it did not include in its front-page story, though it is in an online version of the story.
Tarry’s lawyers said “any suggestion of criminality or breach of election law is defamatory and inaccurate”.
Tarry, who is a member of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) Union, last week defended Corbyn after claims that the Labour leader had lied about not being able to get a seat on a Virgin train to Newcastle.
Tarry was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and criticised the Virgin Trains owner, Sir Richard Branson, whom he called a tax exile who was “literally laughing all the way to the bank at the British taxpayers’ expense”.
Tarry said Branson’s involvement in the spat came because Branson was upset at Corbyn’s plans to renationalise the railways.
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/28/corbyn-adviser-sam-tarry-denies-claims-electoral-fraud-barking-address
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/67d1717561a2603bc4e79d85f1c1581ddd0acffad5e2ecf19d28de0e4bc26ca9.json
|
|
[
"Hannah Devlin",
"Martin Rees",
"Simon Lewis"
] | 2016-08-29T14:59:16 | null | 2015-03-11T00:00:00 |
A new study finds the year to be a key point for the Anthropocene – marking the irreversible transfer of crops and species between the old and new worlds
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2015%2Fmar%2F11%2Fwas-1610-the-beginning-of-a-new-human-epoch-anthropocene.json
|
en
| null |
Was 1610 the beginning of a new human epoch?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
King James was on the throne, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline was playing in the theatre and Galileo discovered four moons of Jupiter. In future, though, 1610 could be chiefly remembered as the geological time-point at which humans came to dominate Earth.
Scientists have argued that it is time to draw a line under the current geological epoch and usher in the start of a new one, defined by mankind’s impact on the planet.
The year 1610 is a contender for marking the transition, they claim, because this is when the irreversible transfer of crops and species between the new and old worlds was starting to be acutely felt.
Simon Lewis, an ecologist at University College London and author of the paper, said: “In a hundred thousand years, scientists will look at the environmental record and know something remarkable happened in the second half of the second millennium. They will be in no doubt that these global changes to Earth were caused by their own species.”
When Europeans started arriving in the Americas, he added, a cascade of events was triggered that was “as Earth-changing as a meteorite strike”.
The concept of the “anthropocene” is already widely used on an informal basis by writers and environmentalists, but scientists remain divided on whether the designation of a new time period is justified.
Critics argue that the desire to redraw geological boundaries is politically motivated by those wanting to highlight the extent of human destruction on the planet. Others say that it is about 1,000 years too soon to identify the most enduring geological markers of human activity on Earth.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), the world body that decides on geological time boundaries, is actively considering the question and a working group is due to report on the issue next year.
The central problem is identifying a permanent and global change that has been captured in natural material, such as rocks, ice or marine sediment – a so-called “golden spike”.
“Global long-term changes to Earth’s system … are required to have one marker that can be precisely dated that is captured in some ancient geological material,” said Lewis.
Lewis and his UCL co-author, Mark Maslin, considered and rejected the earliest use of fire, the dawn of agriculture and the industrial revolution as possible candidates.
Eventually they identified two events – the joining of the two hemispheres and nuclear testing in the 20th century – that met the golden spike criteria.
The year 1610 marks the low-point of a dip in global carbon dioxide levels caused by a drastic reduction in farming in the Americas. This was a knock-on effect of the 50 million or so indigenous deaths that resulted from the introduction of small pox to the continent by European colonialists. A secondary marker of the colliding of worlds is the sudden appearance, in 1600, of fossil pollen maize, a Latin American species, in the European marine record.
The paper, published today in Nature, also considered the year 1964, which saw a peak in radioactive fallout following nuclear weapons testing before the test ban treaty came into force.
The authors conclude that 1610 has a stronger claim because so far the testing of nuclear weapons has not been an Earth-changing event. “I tend to go with 1610 because … the evolutionary consequences of that are pushing Earth onto a new evolutionary trajectory,” said Lewis.
Jan Zalasiewicz, chair of the ICS’s Anthropocene working group, said his committee would consider the authors arguments. However, the working group is converging on nuclear testing as a more universal marker - the CO2 dip and pollen records are patchy and have fuzzier boundaries, he contends.
A potential downside of the nuclear signal is that it will have decayed away within 100,000 years – a blink of the eye in geological time. “Geologists are very pragmatic creatures though,” said Zalasiewicz. “We’re looking for the best signal for dividing strata now, not for geologists a million years in the future.”
The arrival of the Anthropocene would mark the end of the Holocene, the epoch that we currently live in, which itself was only defined in 2008. It is marked by a signal in the Greenland ice cores indicating the end of the last ice age, 11,700 years ago.
Since epochs typically last tens of millions of years, some suggest that the Holocene should not only end, but be scrapped or downgraded. “The Holocene is supposed to last tens of millions of years and it’s several orders of magnitude to short,” said Lewis. “I think we’d have to call that a stage rather than an epoch.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/11/was-1610-the-beginning-of-a-new-human-epoch-anthropocene
|
en
| 2015-03-11T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bab2961ce8e523686fecdac36c9caedbd9969bdd320bd7e2ad6023409602fe03.json
|
|
[
"Stuart Clark"
] | 2016-08-29T22:59:22 | null | 2016-04-14T16:59:53 |
A former analyst with the US Department of Defence is on the trail of an astronomical ‘cold case’ – an unexplained signal that some believe could have come from extraterrestrials
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2Facross-the-universe%2F2016%2Fapr%2F14%2Falien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years.json
|
en
| null |
Alien ‘Wow!’ signal could be explained after almost 40 years
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Way back in 1977 something amazing happened (apart from the release of Star Wars obviously). Astronomer Jerry Ehman was using the Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope to sweep the sky for possible signals from extraterrestrial civilisations. He found something.
While pointing towards a grouping of stars called Chi Sagittarii on 15 August, he received a powerful blast of radio waves that lasted for 72 seconds. He circled it on the readout and wrote: “Wow!”
Analysis of the signal showed that it displayed all the hallmarks of coming from interstellar space, and it became something of a cause célèbre for those involved in SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The trouble is that despite numerous attempts, the signal has never been observed again and so remains unexplained. Until now perhaps, thanks to the work of Professor Antonio Paris of St Petersburg College, Florida.
‘Alien megastructure’ could explain mysterious new Kepler results Read more
Before he was an astrophysicist at the St Petersburg College, Paris was an analyst for the US Department of Defence. “I have this investigative background, so I approached the ‘Wow!’ signal as I’m going back to the crime scene,” he told me over Skype. “It’s a cold case, so I went to various [astronomical] databases to find culprits or suspects that were at this crime scene at the time.”
He didn’t find aliens but he did find two suspicious looking comets.
Known as 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs, they have never been investigated before because they were only discovered in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Paris found that they were both in the vicinity of Chi Sagittarii on the day that the ‘Wow!’ signal was detected.
This could be significant because comets are surrounded by clouds of hydrogen gas that are millions of kilometres in diameter. The ‘Wow!’ signal itself was detected by Ehman at 1420MHz, which is a radio frequency that hydrogen naturally emits. He published his idea at the beginning of this year.
But before the case can be closed, Paris must test his hypothesis and for this he needs public support.
Comet 266P/Christensen will pass the Chi Sagittarii star group again on 25 January 2017, while 335P/Gibbs will make its passage on 7 January 2018. Paris plans to observe these events to look for a recurrence of the mystery signal. But time is not on his side for using an existing radio telescope – they are all booked out.
So, he has launched a crowdfunding campaign on gofundme to raise the $13,000 he needs to buy a radio telescope to make the observation. Donations are rolling in and he is already most of the way to his target.
“I would like to [be fully funded] in May, order the stuff so that I can have it by October,” he says. This would give him time to construct the dish, test it and prepare for the January encounter.
Although some other astronomers have voiced scepticism at his hypothesis, Paris points out that even if he turns out to be wrong, it’s still good science because we are learning something about comets, and he and his colleagues have a new radio telescope that they can use for further research.
Also on the plus side; if it isn’t comets, SETI scientists still have their best candidate for an extraterrestrial signal.
Stuart Clark is the author of The Unknown Universe (Head of Zeus), and co-host of the podcast The Stuniverse (Bingo Productions). He is teaching the Guardian Masterclass ‘Understand the Universe in an Evening’ on 23 May.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/apr/14/alien-wow-signal-could-be-explained-after-almost-40-years
|
en
| 2016-04-14T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8426b657fa7ed79cbdb0078446548d8b8cd17cd81eb6be781ca0ce1047650007.json
|
|
[
"Karl Mathiesen"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:59 | null | 2016-08-12T06:14:32 |
The world’s population of elephants is nearing a critical point, being depleted at unprecedented levels. Here we precis the current situation
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F12%2Felephants-on-the-path-to-extinction-the-facts.json
|
en
| null |
Elephants on the path to extinction - the facts
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Elephant evolution
The largest of all land beasts, elephants are thundering, trumpeting six-tonne monuments to the wonder of evolution. From the tip of that distinctive trunk with its 100,000 dextrous muscles; to their outsize ears that flap the heat away; to the complex matriarchal societies and the mourning of their dead; to the points of their ivory tusks, designed to defend, but ultimately the cause of their ruin.
African and Asian elephants are more closely related to the woolly mammoth than to each other. The ears are said to be a geographical guide. In Asia, elephants have smaller India-shaped ears. While in Africa their huge ears are the shape of the whole continent.
Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of the world's elephant population Read more
Where do they live?
Asian elephants used to roam from the coast of Persia through India and southeast Asia and deep into China. In Africa, they could be found in almost every habitat from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. Most common in the savannahs, elephants still inhabit a wide variety of landscapes. They can be found in the Saharan and Namibian deserts and the rainforests of Rwanda and Borneo. But their range has shrunk and they are now extinct in the Middle East, on the Indonesian island of Java, northern Africa and most of China. Almost everywhere, these great nomads are restricted to ever-decreasing pockets of land.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elephants in Kenya. Photograph: THE DSWT / Barcroft Images
How many elephants are alive around the world?
In 1800 there may have been 26 million elephants in Africa alone, although it’s hard to be precise. But today, after years of poaching and habitat destruction, those numbers are a tiny fraction of what they once were.
Current range of Asian elephants Current range of Asian elephants
In Asia, it is estimated that less than 50,000 elephants remain; more than half of them in India. Tiny populations, a few hundreds or thousands, cling on in countries across south-east Asia and the Himalayas.
In Africa, the larger of the two species is a step further from extinction. Less than half a million roam the continent, mostly in the southern states. In the west and the forested centre, elephants are in a particularly perilous condition.
What has caused the destruction of elephants?
For thousands of years ivory has been prized and elephants have been killed for it. The Egyptian pharoah Tutankhamun was laid to rest around 1323BC on a headrest of ivory, while in nearby Syria elephants were more or less wiped out for their ivory by 500BC.
The invention of guns increased the pressure. The 19th century brought a fashion for big game hunting among colonialists, which wiped out herds across the continent of Africa. Now the remaining dwindling numbers face the threat of local hunters and modern poaching gangs, financed by Asian syndicates and armed by the conflicts of Africa.
Elephants are the end of a 60 million year lineage – the last of the megaherbivores Read more
Some experts see the brutal killings of elephants not as a battle for a commodity, but for land. As the human population booms, so does demand for space. Poaching conveniently removes elephants from the land, leaving it open to development. This is a pattern seen across western Africa, where elephant declines have been most precipitous. By 2050, 63% of remaining elephant rangelands will be compromised (pdf) by human encroachment.
The tightly-contested rural landscapes of Asia have seen a more direct form of conflict between humans and elephants. In an evening’s feeding a herd of elephants can destroy the annual crop of many small farmers. Human lives are also in danger. In India, panicked or enraged elephants kill more than 400 people each year (pdf). This leads to retaliation. Wildlife authorities often hunt down and kill problem elephants. In Indonesia, dozens of elephants are poisoned by palm oil growers each year.
Uncovering the ‘elephant holocaust’
As Africa’s nations shook off colonial rule in the years following World War II, a huge poaching crisis arose. British zoologist Ian Douglas Hamilton, who flew a light aircraft over sub-Saharan African countries to count elephants in the 1970s and 80s, uncovered what became known as the “elephant holocaust”. He estimated that African elephant numbers fell from one million to 400,000 during the 1980s.
Current range of African elephants Current range of African elephants
Without the often dangerous work of Hamilton, governments would not have come together to ban the international trade in ivory in 1989. This led to a recovery in elephant numbers until 2008, when infiltration of the ivory trade by criminal gangs, rising Asian demand and high levels of corruption increased the levels of poaching with catastrophic results.
How many elephants are killed a year for ivory?
Around 20,000 African elephants were killed last year for their tusks, more than were born. Chinese wealth is financing a hunger for ivory that threatens to bring an end to wild elephants within our lifetime.
There has never been a more dangerous time to be an elephant. Not during the industrial pillaging of the colonial era, nor the chaotic African and Asian independence movements that sparked a 1970s poaching boom, has an elephant been more likely to fall to a gun.
In spite of the global ban on international trade (overseen by the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species – Cites) the illegal ivory trade has exploded. Some believe large amounts of ivory has also been bought and stored in secret warehouses by investors needing somewhere to hide money from the global downturn. Criminal gangs bribe officials to ship huge quantities of ivory through the ports to illicit factories and markets of China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand in particular. In 2011, seizures hit a peak of 23 metric tonnes – 2,500 elephants. But that is only a fraction of what makes it through undisturbed.
What should we do with ivory stockpiles?
Some African states - including Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana - are arguing for the right to sell off their ever-growing stockpiles, fed by both seizures and natural deaths, in order to help fund conservation work.
But ivory sell-offs - such as the two in 1999 and 2008 - have been also criticised for increasing demand, although there are some who dispute these findings. Another sale has been mooted by Zimbabwe and Namibia and will be discussed at Cites’ triennial conference this September. Many states have burned their stockpiles for symbolic and practical reasons.
Is it still legal to sell ivory?
In many countries ivory can be sold legally, usually sourced from stockpiles or from elephants killed before the ban, allowing antiques to be traded. Cites has raised concerns that unregulated domestic markets in China, Japan, Myanmar and Vietnam allow freshly killed ivory to join legal stock on the shelves, fuelling the poaching crisis.
What can we do to halt the decline?
1) Protect habitat
Efforts to protect Asian elephants focus immense pressure on land and habitat. Poaching exists on the continent, but it is a lesser threat compared to the destruction of their homes. Unlike their African cousins, only Asian bull elephants have tusks. Elephant protection relies on the defence of reserve land from legal and illegal encroachment, logging, roads and other developments. Innovative solutions can help, such as a project in the tea fields of India which uses an SMS warning system so that humans can coexist safely with elephants.
2) Reduce demand
In the markets of Asia where the majority of the poached African ivory ends up, the holy grail of elephant conservation remains the abolition of demand for ivory. This has worked in Japan – what was one of the biggest markets for ivory at the turn of this century is now a minor player.
In China, advertising campaigns featuring local and foreign celebrities are having an effect. The proportion of Chinese who believe elephant poaching is a problem grew from 47% to 71% between 2012 and 2014. This awareness also appears to be having an effect on policy. The Chinese and US governments have agreed to work together to end the global illegal ivory trade. Last year, China began to phase out its domestic manufacture and sale of ivory and the US cracked down on its own internal market, which was the second largest in the world.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Seized ivory products in China Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP
Meanwhile the Europeans – historically responsible for a great part of the decline of elephants during colonial-era craze for big game hunting – have drawn criticism for refusing to back a long-term end to all trade in ivory. Some observers argue that the only way to save elephants is to give them economic value. That can mean emphasising the value to tourism, but the EU has raised the possibility of allowing states where populations are stable to harvest ivory and sell it to China legally.
3) Support the frontline defenders
The link between poaching and poverty is clear: rates of infant mortality and poaching activity correlate strongly. In Kenya, a poacher makes $3 per kilo of ivory, a princely sum compared to the daily earnings of many around them. But the gangs they sell it to get $1,100 per kilo for the same tusk in China. Many elephants, particularly in the forests of central Africa, are not only targeted for their ivory. An enterprising hunter can make more (pdf) money in the unregulated bushmeat markets from the smoked meat than from the tusks. So the development and prosperity of rural Africa is a vital aspect of elephant conservation.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Volunteers carry elephant tusks to a burning site for a historic destruction of illegal ivory and rhino-horn confiscated mostly from poachers in Nairobi’s national park. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
In the face of this multitude of threats, inspirational work is being done by exceptionally brave people. In Kenya, former poachers are recruited to be the world’s first line of defence against the murder of elephants – the park rangers. All too frequently they lose their lives. These people, the NGO community and the efforts of many governments are sources of hope. The defeat of greed and desperation may be hard to imagine. But try imagining a world without elephants.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/12/elephants-on-the-path-to-extinction-the-facts
|
en
| 2016-08-12T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/766a01431b6d4d22665c3badd1afb100e07a30b8671e31f6566b097ea4fcb9c0.json
|
|
[
"Agence France-Presse In Singapore"
] | 2016-08-28T18:51:58 | null | 2016-08-28T17:13:41 |
All are residents or workers, predominantly foreign, in a particular suburban residential and industrial district
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fsingapore-authorities-confirm-41-cases-of-zika.json
|
en
| null |
Singapore authorities confirm 41 cases of Zika
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Singapore has confirmed 41 locally transmitted cases of the Zika virus, which can cause deformities in unborn babies, and says more infections are likely.
A day after announcing its first locally transmitted case, that of a 47-year-old female Malaysian resident, on Sunday the government reported 40 more – mostly foreign workers at a construction site.
All 41 are residents or workers in a particular suburban residential and industrial district, the Ministry of Health and the National Environment Agency said in a joint statement.
“They are not known to have travelled to Zika-affected areas recently, and are thus likely to have been infected in Singapore,” the statement said.
“This confirms that local transmission of Zika virus infection has taken place.”
It said that at this point the community transmission of the virus appeared to be localised within the Aljunied Crescent and Sims Drive area, which hosts high-rise residential blocks and some industries.
However, since Zika is spread by the Aedes mosquito – which also carries the dengue virus – the health ministry “cannot rule out further community transmission ... since some of those tested positive also live or work in other parts of Singapore”, the statement said.
The health ministry said it had alerted clinics and hospitals to be “extra vigilant” and report patients with symptoms associated with the virus, mainly fever and rash.
The health minister, Gan Kim Yong, told local media more imported cases were likely because Singapore is an international travel hub. And because many Zika carriers display only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all – meaning infected people may not seek treatment – local transmission of these imported cases “is also very high”, he said.
Health officials said the current infections came to light after a local clinic on 22 August reported an unusual rise in viral fever. This prompted a check by health ministry experts, who told doctors to refer new cases to the government-run Communicable Diseases Centre.
The National Environment Agency has deployed more than 200 officers to inspect and destroy possible mosquito breeding sites in the area.
According to the statement, 36 of the 41 cases involve foreign labourers working at a construction site. Work was halted at the site on Saturday after an inspection by environment agency officers discovered that housekeeping was “unsatisfactory with potential breeding habitats favourable to mosquito breeding”, the statement added.
Twelve on-site workers’ quarters and two other dormitories elsewhere were also inspected and one breeding site was detected and destroyed.
Singapore hosts thousands of foreign construction workers, most of them from south Asia. The statement said 34 of the total number infected had fully recovered while the other seven, who are still symptomatic and potentially infectious, remained in hospital.
The latest outbreak of the disease began in Brazil in early 2015. Singapore in May reported its first imported Zika case, a 48-year-old male Singapore resident who had travelled to São Paulo in Brazil earlier in the year.
In the United States more than 2,500 people have been diagnosed with Zika, most of them infected while travelling abroad. Zika causes only mild symptoms for most people, such as fever and a rash. But in pregnant women, it can cause microcephaly, a deformation in which babies are born with abnormally small brains and heads.
The Singapore joint statement urged pregnant women to monitor their health and seek medical attention if they are unwell.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/singapore-authorities-confirm-41-cases-of-zika
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5979a3e5b2c1eed72e518484aea50a21baecaa044c4ff35a2f07dc3072d435ac.json
|
|
[
"Helen Pidd"
] | 2016-08-26T13:25:51 | null | 2016-08-20T10:00:01 |
It also looks a delight and is clearly aimed at the fashionable retro market
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F20%2Fribble-reynolds-525-bicycle-review-helen-pidd.json
|
en
| null |
Ribble Reynolds 525 bike review: ‘Happily, the Ribble is a trooper, even if I am not’
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It was one of those days when we had jumped the gun putting Lycra on. We sat in the front room in our cycling shorts looking out at the rain, willing the other to suggest hibernation instead. Neither did, so when the deluge had dulled to a drizzle, out we went. There was a bicycle to be tested, after all.
The Peak District lanes were wet, but it didn’t really matter to me. The Ribble had excellent mudguards; my bottom would stay dry. The same could not be said for my face. My cycling companion that day was not only a mudguard refusenik but also far faster than me, which meant an afternoon chasing him down, sucking his wheel and drinking puddle water until the sun came out. He is also a mountain biker, which meant a few ill-advised “shall we just see where this one goes?” diversions. One, past the Derbyshire village of Wash, involved pedalling up a gravelly stream and almost an early bath.
Happily, the Ribble is a trooper, even if I am not. The 25mm tyres rolled along fine, even on rocky terrain. The skinny steel frame (Reynolds 525) soaked up the worst of the bumps without adding much weight. I was glad the manufacturers insisted I get the 44cm model, even though it looked fit for a Borrower. At 5ft 4in in my socks, I usually take a 51cm frame, but was assured, correctly, that the top tube would be long enough. The snug geometry really worked for me, allowing me to put out maximum power on the cranks when climbing out of the saddle. It also looked a delight, clearly aimed at the fashionable retro market, where carbon is the devil and steel rules supreme.
On the road: Ikea Sladda bicycle review – ‘Build your own Ikea bike? It’s either a masterstroke or a recipe for disaster’ Read more
Ribble bikes are built to order: mine, which cost £925, had a Campagnolo Veloce Silver groupset, 10 speed. I’ve never really understood the Campag cult, yet I loved the smooth shift and elegant chainrings. My model had a 12-25 compact cassette, which gave low enough gearing to get up a frankly ridiculous 20%er near the otter and owl sanctuary in Slackhall, albeit with a few pauses to “look at the view”.
You know how some bikes just feel good? You get on, set off, and think: Oh, we are going to be together a long time. Like when you meet someone new and fit perfectly into their embrace on the first go without any need for adjustments. It was like that for the Ribble and me. It’s the perfect little winter bike, or a very snazzy commuter. I can really see a future for the pair of us together.
Ribble Reynolds 525: in numbers
Frame (£659.95) Ribble STEEL Winter/Audax 525
Groupset (+ £139.99) Campagnolo Veloce Silver 10 Speed Double Bikebuilder
Seatpost (+ £18.99) CSN Carbon S.E. Seatpillar
Saddle (+ £5.99) Selle Italia Lady Flow Saddle
Retro rating 9/10
|
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/20/ribble-reynolds-525-bicycle-review-helen-pidd
|
en
| 2016-08-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/069122da4f65943dc32f60360ea970d2fb953e51b981b5ed78574b7b0896951c.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T18:50:43 | null | 2016-08-26T17:10:04 |
Letters: A recent survey of 180 local authorities estimates that cuts in youth service spending stand at £387m since April 2010
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fservices-for-the-young-have-been-slashed-too.json
|
en
| null |
Youth services have been savagely cut too
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Without competing as to which group has been most affected by austerity and agreeing with Jackie Ashley’s concern about cuts in services for disabled people (In Rio, as in Britain, disability rights are under attack again, 25 August), please do not forget the position of young people’s services. A recent survey by Unison of 180 local authorities that provide youth services in the UK estimates that cuts in youth service spending stand at £387m since April 2010. As the chair of a youth charity (which receives no statutory funds but works with partners who rely on them), I cannot help but wonder whether there is a link between the enormous cuts in youth service provision and the current rise in knife crime among young people.
Don Macdonald
Chair, London Football Journeys
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
|
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/26/services-for-the-young-have-been-slashed-too
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a14f1e2471348b000bdd5d45499ed528df4a4f04ec2d7e262f1aa416cb4159b6.json
|
|
[
"Joanna Ruck",
"Photograph",
"Ben A Pruchnie Getty Images",
"Jack Taylor Getty Images",
"Daniel Leal-Olivas Afp Getty Images",
"Neil Hall Reuters",
"Jonathan Brady Pa"
] | 2016-08-29T16:50:05 | null | 2016-08-29T15:18:18 |
Revellers, police – and a dog – soak up the final day of the west London street festival
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fculture%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fnotting-hill-carnival-day-two-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Notting Hill carnival, day two - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Some of these outfits look like they might make for a tricky trip to the toilet
Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images
|
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2016/aug/29/notting-hill-carnival-day-two-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a3bd8b2ffa15f98ef4f6dee4b2ef41087828456d6733b87550e28ee0d6cdf435.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:19:27 | null | 2016-08-25T16:29:06 |
After a career that started over 19 years ago, Robbie Keane has announced he will retire from professional football after the Republic of Ireland’s friendly match with Oman on 31 August
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Frobbie-keane-a-retrospective-on-irelands-best-striker-video.json
|
en
| null |
Robbie Keane: a retrospective on the Republic of Ireland's best striker - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
After a career that started over 19 years ago, Robbie Keane has announced he will retire from professional football after the Republic of Ireland’s friendly match with Oman on 31 August. With Ireland, Keane currently holds the record for appearances (145) and as a top scorer (67 goals)
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/25/robbie-keane-a-retrospective-on-irelands-best-striker-video
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4e2a51dec0a5c3a7a58438c9cd9cf5ebbce3f0ae0f65c105d4600d617d032b55.json
|
|
[
"Giles Richards",
"Ryan Baxter"
] | 2016-08-26T14:51:33 | null | 2016-08-26T12:52:47 |
2016 Formula One season restarts at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Ff1-belgian-gp-guide-everything-you-need-to-know-about-spa-francorchamps-video.json
|
en
| null |
F1 Belgian GP guide: everything you need to know about Spa-Francorchamps - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The 2016 Formula One season restarts after the summer break, in Belgium at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. One of only four remaining circuits to have featured in the first Formula One world championship in 1950, Spa strongly deserves its status as one of the legendary tracks and is beloved by fans and drivers alike. This season’s race will see Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg resume their battle for the drivers championship
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2016/aug/26/f1-belgian-gp-guide-everything-you-need-to-know-about-spa-francorchamps-video
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5a7f237fe03edda194795b82e837a176ec04a5dd928e103b7b55f4439a3afb03.json
|
|
[
"Nicky Woolf"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:55 | null | 2016-08-25T20:04:22 |
Supporters have rallied around Sacramento’s Freeport Bakery after a flood of negative comments were posted on picture of a Ken doll wearing a cake dress
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ftransgender-ken-doll-cake-sacramento-freeport-bakery.json
|
en
| null |
Transgender 'Ken doll' cake brings controversy to California bakery
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Supporters have rallied around a Sacramento bakery which made a transgender Ken doll cake after a backlash attacking the creation as “disgusting”.
Freeport Bakery – which was voted the best in the city in 2015 by Sacramento Magazine – posted the picture of the cake on Facebook on 13 August. There was a swift backlashto the post, which received hundreds of comments attacking the bakery.
The negative comments have since been deleted, and hundreds more have been posted in support of the bakery.
“Naively, I guess, I just thought this is a really cool cake, and look at how great they did with the butter cream,” Marlene Goetzeler, co-owner of the bakery, told a local Fox affiliate. “What’s wrong with a Ken cake?”
“I started getting some negative comments ... Then a couple days later I noticed there was a big dip in unlikes. I was kind of surprised,” Goetzeler told the station. “I was shocked that somebody would be offended.”
The cake was designed for a party for a local group that meets regularly to play dice games. Chad Graham, who attended the party at which the cake was served, told the station that the cake was not intended to be a political statement.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We have received that support and so much more from our fans, devoted customers and staff.’ Photograph: Freeport Bakery/Facebook
“A customer requested a Ken doll cake and we were happy to make it; she loved the cake when she picked it up,” the bakery said in a statement posted to its website. “We were especially proud of its buttercream detail so we decided to post a photo of it on our Facebook page, as we do with many of the cakes we design and adore.”
“A few days later, we noticed a large number of unlikes on our page and realized they were a result of our Ken cake post,” the statement continued. “We reposted the picture asking for support from our Facebook friends. Luckily, we have received that support and so much more from our fans, devoted customers and staff.”
Since the image was first posted, the local community has posted hundreds of messages of support to the bakery on its Facebook page.
“Haters of one outstanding cake, be serious! Ken never looked so good!” one wrote. “With a lot news reports saying in other states refusing to make wedding cakes for same-sex marriages, you make me proud to live in a diverse and accepting community! You have my support!” said another.
Others from further afield have also joined their voices in support of Freeport and the Ken cake. “I’m liking this page all the way from Mallorca, because I find this story truly inspiring,” one wrote. “Instead of deleting the post due to backlash or issuing an apology for all the butthurt people, you’re just saying; ‘This is our job, we do as the costumers request, if they want a Ken-doll in a dress for a cake, you’re damn sure they’ll get it.’”
“Perfect,” the poster added.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/transgender-ken-doll-cake-sacramento-freeport-bakery
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/052940955761a6bac0316a475bd0c05c8b95861d2a12c0fbd9d6c146bf6a443c.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-28T16:49:42 | null | 2016-08-28T16:21:10 |
The motorway has reopened between junctions 1-4 after a lorry collided with a footbridge, blocking the carriageway
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fsection-m20-reopens-eastbound-following-bridge-collapse.json
|
en
| null |
Section of M20 reopens eastbound following bridge collapse
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The M20 has partially reopened in the eastbound direction, after it was completely closed following the collapse of a bridge on Saturday.
Restrictions on the motorway were initially put in place after a footbridge crashed on to the carriageways on Saturday, causing hours of traffic chaos on one of the busiest weekends of the year.
The bridge came down between junctions three and four shortly after noon on Saturday when a digger being transported on the back of a lorry collided with it.
A motorcyclist in his 50s was taken to hospital in Tunbridge Wells with suspected broken ribs following the incident while the driver of the lorry was treated for shock at the scene.
The road has now reopened, although with one lane still closed at the site of the incident and extensive safety checks being carried out.
Highways England initially tweeted the M20 was open westbound, but soon after issued a correction via Twitter that the motorway had only reopened eastbound between junctions 1-4.
— Highways England (@HighwaysSEAST) **CORRECTION** #M20 eastbound is OPEN J1-J4. We'll let you know when the westbound carriageway re-opens. pic.twitter.com/FRXDWnsqPO
Stuart Thompson, a Highways England spokesman, said: “We have worked overnight and removed part of the structure on the London-bound carriageway.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/section-m20-reopens-eastbound-following-bridge-collapse
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/103c3dbeae6959c4ab1101be9efe7d146f02f5e68a11262e136bc3fc41f2efec.json
|
|
[
"Sid Lowe"
] | 2016-08-31T12:53:08 | null | 2016-08-31T11:31:19 |
Shkodran Mustafi became the 17th player to move from La Liga to the Premier League this summer when he joined Arsenal but English clubs, for all their financial muscle, are landing mainly second-tier talent
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fpremier-league-spain-la-liga-transfer-window-signings.json
|
en
| null |
Premier League is draining talent from Spain but not catching the very best
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
There was a moment during the first half of last season when Lucas Pérez was asked what his parents made of the form that saw him closing in on a goalscoring record at Deportivo, held by the Brazilian striker Bebeto. “They’re just happy to have me around,” he replied. He had been away since he was a teenager and spent the previous four years in Greece and Ukraine, the final months there the “worst of my life”, but at last he was home. Now less than a year later, he has gone again.
Transfer news: Tottenham start Sissoko talks, Wilshere, Brahimi and more – live! Read more
Arsenal made an offer too good to refuse, however much Pérez had missed Galicia: a big club, Champions League football, the chance to compete for titles, treble the salary, and a transfer fee that Deportivo not only needed but welcomed and that met his buy-out clause: €20m, £17m. London is not Lviv, either. As for Arsenal, they got a quick, skilful, mobile forward who might not be a starter, nor have been their initial target, but who scored 17 times in La Liga and has been directly involved in more goals than any Spaniard since the start of last season.
Just ahead of Pérez in the goalscoring charts last season was Eibar’s Borja Bastón, on 18. He signed for Swansea City for £15m, where he joins Fernando Llorente, signed from Sevilla. They are part of a significant exodus from Spain to the Premier League this summer: Manquillo, Nolito, Bravo, Feghouli, Bailly, Negredo … the list goes on. When Shkodran Mustafi left Valencia on Tuesday night to join Pérez at Arsenal, it brought the number of players who have made the move to 17, and Vicente Iborra, Ignacio Camacho and Aymen Abdennour may yet join them. West Bromwich Albion have offered €18m for the Málaga midfielder, Sunderland’s €9m bid for Iborra was rejected by Sevilla and Chelsea are in talks over taking the defender Abdennour on loan from Valencia.
Spaniards moving to England is nothing new but this is a little different, a pattern that was already present yet has become more apparent and is illustrated by Pérez’s move.
For the best players at Spain’s “other” clubs keen to compete and to secure a contract more in keeping with their talent, a clear choice emerged some time ago: join Real Madrid or Barcelona (or, later, Atlético Madrid) or go abroad, where the financial and footballing muscle was greater. England offered opportunities that would otherwise have been denied to players such as David Silva or Juan Mata.
But of this summer’s signings, perhaps only Nolito fits that pattern; while each case is different, the rest come largely from a second tier of footballers. This time, the very best of La Liga have remained in Spain: Real Madrid and Barcelona still have Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and Suárez, while Atlético kept hold of Antoine Griezmann and Kevin Gameiro left Sevilla to join him at the Vicente Calderón. It is the “others” who have departed. This is not just a different generation; it is a different level. Attractive, but for other reasons.
Premier League: transfer window summer 2016 – interactive Read more
English clubs, even beyond the Premier League, see in Spain a market that offers a reasonable price-quality relationship, a place for the risk-averse to sign a ready-made solution. It is a market in which they have confidence, one that has produced talented players, where development is good, and whose clubs have performed well in Europe, and is still cheaper than the Premier League.
Yet that risk-averse element may be innately risky; it may mean they are missing out on the best buys for players who will not raise the level dramatically. There is a habit of overlooking younger, “unproven” talent: everyone wants Griezmann now, no one wanted him enough to pay €30m two years ago; Sandro went to Málaga for free, not England; and the queue at Álvaro Morata’s door was not there two years ago. Instead, they favour players who offer a “guaranteed” return. How much of a return is another issue; a “return” no longer means signing a potential star, necessarily. It is not about Paul Pogba, it is about the men who cost a quarter of his fee.
Spain becomes a trusted testing ground for clubs who know that even if a player’s value rises, they can still meet it. There is the story of a manager telling his club to sign a young midfielder, insisting that he will be worth €100m in two years. To which he is told: “Let’s sign him in two years, then.” The example comes from the very highest level and from Spain, from clubs who know they can get their man, but there is an element of that when it comes to all clubs with money and right now English clubs have money – especially compared to Spanish ones.
“I know English clubs that work very hard when it comes to scouting but all the information that they gather they then don’t use it when it finally comes to making signings,” admits the Sevilla sporting director, Monchi. “Why? Because they have money. The attitude is: I’m not going to discover [Seydou] Keita at Lens I’m going to let Sevilla do that and then buy Keita from Sevilla. The money allows English clubs to not take the risk.”
This summer that process has continued; more importantly, it has continued down the market and down the league; it does not just apply to obvious targets signed as a team’s stand-out star, whose numbers on the market get fewer.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eric Bailly, in action here for Manchester United against Hull City, moved to Old Trafford from Villarreal. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock
The existence of buy-out clauses at Spanish clubs also helps to facilitate the move: a fee is set at which clubs know they can get their player fight-free and at which the seller can present it to fans as a victory of sorts, or at least a move about which they could do nothing. The clause is usually set a little high, but no longer so high as to be prohibitive. For players and their agents, it removes some of the potential battle to find a way out, making life easier for everyone. Put in very simplistic terms: these are players who are available.
“Why are English teams turning to Spain?” asks one representative involved in deals between the two countries. “Money, basically. They think they’re getting a top striker for half price and the salary will be half.”
Which is still a lot for Spain, and that is important too. Spanish clubs see in England a cash-rich market they need to sell to, one where they can get big fees for their players. Fuera de mercado, as they say: beyond the market value. A place where every club is rich and even the second division can pay fees that clubs in Spain’s primera division cannot. The Premier League is a threat to La Liga but it has also proven vital to its financial health.
“It is a very good market for us; we sell a lot of players there,” admits Monchi, despite the fact that, this summer, his club has not followed the trend, with Gameiro (Spain), Krychowiak (France), Banega (Italy) and Coke (Germany) all departing for different destinations. One agent is rather more blunt: “Frankly, when they see an English club coming, Spanish sporting directors rub their hands together in glee,” he says. “When the call comes they think of a fee that’s ridiculous and quote that.”
The Premier League has certainly been lucrative for Spanish clubs. £17m for Pérez and £15m for Bastón appears to be a lot of money. But it may be time to recalibrate what counts as “too much” as the income from the new £7bn TV deal reaches Premier League clubs. They pay that because they can. This looks like a sellers’ market to the Spanish and like a buyers’ market to the English. Spanish players may have seemed overpriced this summer, but the context is a window in which Christian Benteke set Crystal Palace back £27m and Yannick Bolaise cost £20m.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/31/premier-league-spain-la-liga-transfer-window-signings
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3cdcd99a2372a2f1b81091a96163d96fca6725c81edf92a439ec9e8f1ac0e257.json
|
|
[
"John Ezard"
] | 2016-08-31T02:50:15 | null | 2001-04-14T00:19:37 |
How a misunderstanding between a British brigadier and US general led to disaster on a Korean battlefield
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk%2F2001%2Fapr%2F14%2Fjohnezard.json
|
en
| null |
Needless battle caused by uncommon language
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
His men were outnumbered eight to one, stranded on every side by human waves of Chinese Communist infantry attackers at the height of the Korean war.
But when the British brigadier reported the position to his American superior in the United Nations joint command, he did so with classic and -as it turned out - lethal British understatement.
"Things are a bit sticky, sir," Brig Tom Brodie of the Gloucestershire Regiment told General Robert H Soule, intending to convey that they were in extreme difficulty.
But Gen Soule understood this to mean "We're having a bit of rough and tumble but we're holding the line". Oh good, the general decided, no need to reinforce or withdraw them, not yet anyway.
The upshot was one of the most famous, heroic and - according to a BBC2 documentary on April 20 - unnecessary last stands in military history: the ordeal of 600 men of the "Glorious Gloucesters" at the Imjin river almost exactly 50 years ago.
With no extra support promised, the colonel in charge of the Gloucesters fell back to a hill overlooking the river, where they made their stand. For four days, mostly without sleep, they held off 30,000 Chinese troops trying to surge across the river, killing 10,000 of them with Bren gun fire.
When they tried to withdraw, they were too late. More than 500 of them were captured and spent years in Chinese camps. Fifty-nine were killed or missing. Only 39 escaped. Two soldiers were awarded Victoria crosses for bravery.
Their feat was credited with saving Seoul, the south Korean capital, from capture. But yesterday the official historian of the war, General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, said Seoul probably would not have been endangered if the men had been withdrawn earlier, and they would not have been cut off or captured.
Sir Anthony, now 77, a former Nato commander-in-chief, was himself captured at Imjin as a young adjutant to the Gloucesters. He said a US officer - unlike Brig Brodie - would have known how to make Gen Soule understand, by using the phrase "Sir, there is all hell breaking loose here".
Sir Anthony said: "The two nations spoke military [language] in a slightly different way. It's certainly a good example of the old saying about Britain and the US as two nations divided by a common language."
He discloses the episode in Forgotten Heroes: Korea Remembered, a programme of interviews with veterans to mark the 50th anniversary of Imjin.
The programme says: "Any hopes of relief were dashed by an American misunderstanding of British understatement."
Sir Anthony said he learned of the conversation from a number of sources while researching An Honourable Discharge, the second volume of his Cabinet Office history of the Korean war, published in 1995.
He said: "I don't think anyone should be hard on the brigadier. He was talking in battle, when they were clinging on by their fingertips. Nobody had time to think of the nuances of what they were saying."
The British 29th brigade, of which the Gloucesters were part, saw 400 die at Imjin. The horror of the slaughter, which began on April 22 1951, is caught in the survivors' stories. John Dyer of Twyford, Berkshire, then a 20-year-old national serviceman with the Royal Ulster Rifles, says in the documentary: "I had never seen so many soldiers in my life. The hillside was literally covered in them. If you've ever seen on a film when lemmings go over a cliff, it was just like that.
"Then we realised that we were into trouble. We wouldn't be human if we hadn't got scared - a mass of people rushing at you, bayonets fixed, grenades being thrown, shouting, screaming, because they used it as a fear tactic."
Geoff Costello of Ashtead, Surrey, who was fighting with a platoon, says: "Several of their assaults just broke up because you can imagine the force of five Bren guns, with one loose on the side. That's 150 rounds all in one spurt in the space of seconds. I saw an awful lot of dead Chinese."
Dennis Whybro of Chelmsford, Essex, who was with the King's Irish Royal Hussars, describes racing by tank uphill to try to rescue the Gloucesters. "It was more or less a death or glory sort of stunt."
Mr Dyer said the courageous Chinese foot soldiers fought almost suicidally when they saw survivors escaping on tanks.
"The tanks were going straight through them. And that's all I could hear, these people screaming, being crushed by the tanks as they went through them. Quite a horrible experience."
Only when the tank carrying him reached safety did Mr Dyer see the full horror of what had happened.
"It was a mess, just a mess. The sides of the tanks were covered in blood. All the tracks were full of limbs, it was a mess. It was a mess. So much so that we were taken off into the tents so that we wouldn't see any more of it. But it was a horrible mess."
When the survivors and ex-prisoners finally returned home, it was to a Britain still sick of the 1939-45 war and uninterested in their experiences.
One of them says: "It's unfair that so many men should be killed and so many men should go [to Korea] and fight and put their lives on the line fighting for the principles of the United Nations.
"But you can't help human nature, can you?"
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/14/johnezard
|
en
| 2001-04-14T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0b951662530115b6fb07483adc01fcc3702135dab70b03cb5343c9757917b5db.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-30T18:59:52 | null | 2016-08-30T18:51:08 |
Letters: When we boarded the train, the stench from the toilet hit us as we climbed up the steps. The smell persisted as we walked (some way) to our reserved seats, and as soon as the train started we moved as far away as possible
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fbritain-privatised-railways-going-down-the-toilet.json
|
en
| null |
Britain’s privatised railways, going down the toilet?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Owen Jones paints a picture of Britain’s railway that is far from accurate (On the floor and in first class our railways are a disgrace, 25 August). Twenty years ago, Britain’s railway ran at a £2bn a year loss in terms of day-to-day costs. As the safest and fastest-growing railway in Europe, it now virtually covers those costs, with £3.5bn a year from taxpayers spent on building a better railway.
To claim Britain has the highest fares in Europe is misleading, as The Man in Seat 61 explains: “This is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too … the highest fares [are] designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares [are] designed to get more revenue by filling more seats.”
The chairman of East Coast while it was under public operation, Michael Holden, recently stated that it “only really worked because it was smallish, one-off and considered temporary”. EC paid £1bn back to the Treasury over five years, but Virgin Trains East Coast will pay back £3.3bn over eight.
We know overcrowding is a problem, as Graham Ruddick and Dan Milmo point out (Are trains in Britain as overcrowded as Jeremy Corbyn claims?, 24 August). The railway upgrade plan of over £50bn will improve journeys, create space for more trains and modernise how we run services. We know it’s causing disruption. But rail passengers have already rated the UK’s railway the best major network in the European Union.
Paul Plummer
Chief executive, Rail Delivery Group
• We can confirm Jeremy Beecham’s comments re the poor state of toilets on Virgin East Coast trains (Letters, 27 September). When we boarded the 10.45 Virgin train to King’s Cross at Leeds on 16 August, the stench from the toilet hit us as we climbed up the steps. The smell persisted as we walked (some way) down to our reserved seats in the quiet coach, and as soon as the train started we moved as far away as possible. Our reserved seats would presumably have then remained empty for the rest of the journey.
An “out of order” sign on the door of the toilet had handwritten additions: “toilet blocked” and “seat broken”, dated July and August. Was it really possible that the toilet had been out of order and unrepaired all that time, or does Virgin keep a sign permanently on board for reuse in the event of broken toilets?
When we complained to the conductor, she sounded distinctly uninterested, with barely an attempt at an apology. We reported this to Virgin when it asked immediately after the journey for feedback – we have received no response.
Susan Kellerman
Leeds
• Right target, wrong issue, sums up the Jeremy Corbyn video. Virgin East Coast is always overcrowded at weekends and peak times on weekdays, but less so at other times, compared with commuter trains in the south-east; and company policy is not to reserve seats in coach H.
However, since Virgin took over from the renationalised East Coast, standards have plummeted. Toilets are regularly out of action, as the passenger you quoted found, all the more annoying as there are fewer toilets on 225s than the old 125s. There is no longer a reduction for booking fares online, and the number of cheaper seats has reduced markedly, so advance fares have increased significantly. More seriously, at a national level, the company accrues large profits whereas the renationalised East Coast returned £1m to the national exchequer, for the benefit of all.
Sheila Cross
Newby Wiske, North Yorkshire
• I have experienced some grimly overcrowded journeys out of Edinburgh on Scotrail. After the last occasion, I duly completed and submitted Scotrail’s complaint form, pointing out two issues in particular: (1) it would be bordering on illegal, if not actually illegal, to transport livestock in these condition; and (2) in the event of an accident, the likely difficulties in evacuating a carriage – or in recovering casualties – resulting from overcrowding would compromise safety and be in breach of Scotrail’s duty of care to its passengers. The reply I received ignored the former, but with regard to the latter, their response was that they did not consider overcrowding to compromise passenger safety.
So that’s that then. On the upside, I did receive a Scotrail £5 travel voucher for their failure to respond to my complaint within seven days.
Dr Andy Matthews FRCVS
Lunan Bay, Angus
• My wife and I travel on Virgin Trains from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston on a regular basisregularly to visit our three grandchildren in Teddington. The service is always good, taking just over two hours. Then we cross London via tube and train to Twickenham. After our visit we return in the late afternoon. The South West Trains service can be a nightmare, with eight-coach trains packed solid. Nobody sits on the floor; there is barely room to move an arm! We feel rather sorry for the silent masses on these trains; being northerners, we chat to passengers, often to their shock and horror, advising them to move to Liverpool for an easier and friendly life.
Phil and Esther Furlong
Liverpool
• Virgin Trains says it can get a passenger to Liverpool “in just two hours 14 minutes, giving you the time to put your feet up” (Party seals Virgin deal, 27 August). Since the only way to put your feet up on a train is to plant them on the seat opposite, this is encouraging two bad habits – blocking the seat opposite and leaving dirt for the next passenger. How about some joined-up thinking here?
Karl Sabbagh
Bloxham, Oxfordshire
• I wonder how Martin Kettle knows that “Corbyn speaks of renationalising the railways, not because it would work well but because he thinks state ownership is right” (On left and right, politics is now led by nostalgic gestures, 26 August). I would not presume to pontificate on the reasons why anyone supports particular policies or ideas, rather than debating the policies or ideas themselves. In fact the case for renationalising Britain’s railways is that it is both right in principle and would work better than at present. The need is for an integrated system, with rational timetables and fare structures nationwide, which can only be achieved with a single operator rather than the present mish-mash. And to ensure that such a monopoly does not exploit its position it has to be publicly owned, with accountability at all levels.
Frank Jackson
Harlow Labour party
• During four gloriously sunny days in the Lake District last week my wife and I wasted at least three hours trying and failing to book seats on Virgin Trains for our return journey. On boarding the crowded train, we were able to find seats but could not sit together.
On Japanese railways there are multiple ways to book seats, including when arriving at the station a few minutes before departure, while on the French TGV it is not possible to board without a booked seat. Can Mr Branson not afford a decent computer, or does the money made from packing in standing passengers outweigh customer service?
Robert Walls
Camberley, Surrey
• The mystery for me is why so many people reserve a train seat, presumably when they purchase their ticket, and don’t travel. Why doesn’t the conductor remove the reservations card on unoccupied seats, say, 10 minutes after departure, thus freeing them up for other passengers?
Ralph Jones
Rochester, Kent
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/30/britain-privatised-railways-going-down-the-toilet
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fabb05d3636b7f26e8562d9279fd1634d2a8a7b96f5754e8a7da25ef02bc5359.json
|
|
[
"Ian Cobain"
] | 2016-08-28T16:51:57 | null | 2016-08-28T14:59:35 |
During the second world war, the government fought a secret campaign against German spies. Now, new letters from the MI5 archive reveal the true story of Jose Waldberg, one of the men who was executed
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fbritain-nazi-spies-mi5-second-world-war-german-executed.json
|
en
| null |
Secrecy and firing squads: Britain’s ruthless war on Nazi spies
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Early on the morning of Tuesday 3 September 1940, two single-masted French fishing boats, La Mascotte and the Rose du Carmel, slipped across the Channel and approached the coast of Kent. When they were a few hundred yards from the headland of Dungeness, four men clambered from the vessels into a pair of rowing boats, and made their way silently to shore.
The four were Carl Meier, 23, a Dutch-born Nazi party member who had spent a little time in Birmingham before the war; Charles van den Kieboom, 25, a Dutch-Japanese dual national; Sjoerd Pons, 28, a Dutchman; and a 25-year-old who described himself as German and called himself Jose Waldberg.
They were agents of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, and their mission was to reconnoitre England’s south coast for the invasion they had been led to believe was just weeks away. Their supplies of corned beef, baked beans and chocolate were to last for around 10 days, and the small radio transmitters they had brought with them contained valves that quickly burned out.
Officially, they were part of Operation Lena, the codename for the Abwehr’s contribution to Hitler’s invasion plan. Unofficially, their spymasters considered their mission to be so hazardous that they called it the Himmelfahrt: the ascension to heaven.
Just 13 days after Winston Churchill came to power, the Treachery Act became law. It carried only one sentence: death
The tale of what happened to these men has been told before. But one sad and salient element of their story has remained hidden, buried for years in the archives of MI5 in poignant letters that have only now come to light after being transferred to the UK National Archives at Kew, south-west London.
Meier was the first to be captured, after he walked the short distance to the village of Lydd and strolled into the Rising Sun pub to ask landlady Mabel Cole for a bottle of cider. Cole was immediately wary of this young man with a foreign accent, who was unaware that he could not buy alcohol in a British pub at 9am. She was even more suspicious when Meier struck his head on the pub’s traditional low ceiling as he walked out. The police were called, and within hours all four would-be spies had been rounded up.
During six weeks at MI5’s interrogation centre, Camp 020, at Ham, in the south-western suburbs of London, all four were persuaded to make lengthy statements. On 24 October, they were charged under the Treachery Act, brought before magistrates at Bow Street court under conditions of complete secrecy, and told they would stand trial at the Old Bailey the following month.
To describe the Treachery Act as having been rushed on to the statute books would be an understatement.
When Churchill entered Downing Street on 10 May that year, he could not accept that the Germans’ rapid victories across Norway and western Europe could be attributed solely to superior weaponry, tactics and fighting spirit; there must, he concluded, be fifth columnists at work behind the lines. He was also convinced that fifth columnists must be at work in Britain, and wanted them rooted out and destroyed. On being told that any British nationals among them could be prosecuted for treason, but that foreigners probably could not, the new prime minister demanded a new law – immediately.
Winston Churchill in Downing Street, 1941. Photograph: Planet News Archive/SSPL via Getty Images
By 23 May, the Treachery Act, which outlawed conduct “designed or likely to give assistance to the naval, military or air operations of the enemy” had passed through parliament and received royal assent. It carried only one sentence: death.
When the trial of the four spies opened on 19 November, the prosecution asked the judge to make an order under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act banning “disclosure of any information with regard to any part of the proceedings”. By lunchtime, reporters supping in the Bell Tavern, 200 yards from the Old Bailey, in Fleet Street, were aware that something was afoot in court one, but could not get in. They also knew that they would not get any story past the censors at the Ministry of Information.
Waldberg surprised the court by pleading guilty. Meier, Kieboom and Pons denied the offence. Pons told the court that he had assisted the Abwehr under duress: he had been threatened with incarceration in a concentration camp after being caught smuggling gems from Holland to Germany, and insisted he had no intention of doing anything to assist the Germans on arrival in England.
After a trial that lasted four days, the jury took less than 90 minutes to convict Meier and Kieboom, who were sentenced to death, along with Waldberg. The jury accepted Pons’s defence, however. He was acquitted, set free, and immediately detained once more as an enemy alien.
In due course, Waldberg and Meier were informed that they were to be hanged at Pentonville prison in north London at 9am on 10 December. Kieboom was to hang a week later. Still, not a word about the case had appeared in the press or been uttered by the BBC.
Charles van den Kieboom, who was hanged as a German spy.
A week before the first executions, Sir Alexander Maxwell, the donnish permanent under-secretary at the Home Office, began having serious misgivings about the way in which the three men had been prosecuted and sentenced to death in complete secrecy. He set out his concerns in a confidential letter to Viscount Swinton, the head of the Security Executive, a body established by Churchill to manage MI5, and to root out the supposed fifth columnists. “Public opinion and public criticism is the most important safeguard for the proper administration of justice,” he wrote. “To carry out sentences of this kind in secrecy is contrary to all our traditions.”
Not that Maxwell was going to suggest that any future spy trials should be open to the press and public; rather, he wanted to be sure that if such secrecy were to be the cause of any future problems, it would be Swinton and MI5 that would take the blame, and not the Home Office and his boss Herbert Morrison, the home secretary. “The home secretary … may at any time be asked by his colleagues or perhaps by the Lord Chief Justice whether he is satisfied that these unusual steps are really necessary in the interests of the defence of the realm,” he explained to Swinton. “I think he ought to have on the Home Office records a letter from you on the subject. The home secretary should be safeguarded by a full statement from the Security Service.”
Swinton’s reply two days later explained that some enemy agents had already been “turned” by MI5, and played back against their Abwehr masters. Those whose capture members of the public had witnessed – or who refused to play the game – would be prosecuted under the Treachery Act.
In time, this deception operation, known as Double Cross, would be seen as one of MI5’s greatest achievements, and it would become a vital part of the allied strategic deception that also relied heavily on the code-breaking efforts of Bletchley Park. Agents who were turned would send their Abwehr handlers a careful blend of correct and incorrect intelligence. They would also ask for reinforcements, with new code books and radios, and plenty of cash, and these men would also be captured. Before long, German intelligence was unwittingly financing the Double Cross operation that was being directed against it. So great a failure was Operation Lena that one historian has recently concluded that anti-Nazis among the upper reaches of the Abwehr must have sabotaged it.
Swinton explained to Maxwell that Double Cross was vital to the war effort. “The combined work of all the services has built up, and is continually adding to, a great structure of intelligence and counter-espionage. A single disclosure, affecting one individual, might send the whole building toppling. Even in passing sentence, a judge may inadvertently err.”
By the time Maxwell had received Swinton’s explanation, however, it was becoming clear to both the Home Office and MI5 that there was a serious problem with one of the secret convictions. At Pentonville, Waldberg was insisting his name was not Jose Waldberg at all, and that he was not German. His name, he insisted, was Henri Lassudry, and he was Belgian.
Initially, MI5 was inclined to brush aside these claims as the desperate fabrications of a condemned man. The agency’s records show, however, that when interrogating Waldberg about his claims, a French-speaking interpreter was used, as the prisoner’s French was excellent – “like a native speaker” – while his German was weak. Furthermore, when “Waldberg” was given the chance to write a number of final letters to his family, he wrote to his parents, a Mons & Mme Lassudry, at an address in Rue des Colonies, Brussels, and a girlfriend, Helene Ceuppens, in nearby Ixelles.
These letters contain an explanation for the plea that had so surprised the Old Bailey. Lassudry complained that his barrister, a man called Blundell, had advised him to enter a guilty plea, without informing him that he would be sentenced to death as a consequence. Lassudry thought he would have a chance to explain himself to the judge. Had he done so, he would have entered the same defence that had saved Pons from the gallows. He was acting under duress, having been a prisoner of the Gestapo, who threatened to arrest his father if he did not agree to undertake the spying mission to England.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A letter relating to the case of Henri Lassudry, AKA Jose Waldberg. Photograph: National Archives in Kew
In the event, he had no chance to speak to the judge, and his sentencing hearing lasted just three minutes. “J’ai été trompé lâchement,” Lassudry protested: I have been rottenly tricked.
In his final letter, Lassudry told his mother: “God knows when you will get this letter. Maybe in a year, or even two.” There was a postscript: “I shall die on Tuesday December 10th at 9 o’clock. Your loving Henri.”
A senior MI5 officer, Colonel William Hinchley Cooke, went to see the attorney general, Sir Donald Somervell, to inquire whether the belated discovery of the true name, nationality and motivation of one of the men who was due to die in a few days’ time might, in any way, call for a stay of his execution. “I gather,” Hinchley Cooke recorded rather laconically in the agency’s files, “that he thinks it does not.”
Meier went to the gallows first, followed minutes later by Lassudry, who was executed under the name Jose Waldberg. At 9.25am, a two-paragraph communiqué written by MI5 informed Fleet Street and the BBC that the two men had been “apprehended shortly after their surreptitious arrival in this country”, with a wireless set and a large sum of money; that they had been tried and convicted, and hanged that morning. The communiqué added: “Editors are asked not to press for any additional facts or to institute inquiries.”
Seven days later a second notice announced the execution of Kieboom. No mention was made of Pons.
Lassudry’s family never received his letters. The Home Office handed them instead to MI5, along with a covering letter that said the condemned man’s criticisms of the English justice system “would prejudice the letters from our point of view, if there is any question of forwarding them to their destinations”.
MI5 filed the letters away and, in 2005, they were quietly deposited at Kew, where they lay for years, apparently unnoticed. By that time, several histories of Operation Lena, and the capture, interrogation and execution of “Jose Waldberg” and the other invasion spies had already been written.
Does Lassudry’s fate amount to a miscarriage of justice? There is no doubt that he was working for the Abwehr: he had sent three brief radio messages from the beach at Dungeness before his capture. On the other hand, it appears likely that the members of the Old Bailey jury who had acquitted Pons – to their enormous credit, given that the nation believed an invasion to be imminent – would also have shown mercy to Lassudry, had they heard his story.
Between 1940 and 1946, 19 spies and saboteurs were prosecuted under the Treachery Act and executed. A 20th spy – a junior Portuguese diplomat – was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment following the intervention of the Portuguese government.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Letter relating to the case of Carl Meier and Jose Waldeberg. Photograph: National Archives in Kew
As each case came to court, senior MI5 officers became increasingly concerned that the in camera procedure being used at the Old Bailey was too insecure. They were also troubled by the requirements that notices of execution be posted on prison gates for 24 hours before a hanging, and that a coroner, sitting with a jury, must conduct an inquest into the death of the hanged man. The remedy, one MI5 officer suggested, would be to court martial spies at military establishments and then shoot them. There would be no prying journalists, no need for execution notices, and no coroner’s juries.
The Home Office was uncomfortable about the prospect of mounting courts martial for foreign nationals who were not members of any armed forces, and resisted the idea. However, one spy was dealt with in this manner after he was found to be a former soldier and a reservist in the German armed forces.
Josef Jakobs, a 42-year-old dentist, had been captured in February 1941 after breaking his leg when he parachuted into Huntingdonshire. After a two-day hearing at Chelsea barracks in London, he was driven to an indoor shooting range at the Tower of London, where he was strapped to a chair and shot by an eight-man firing squad from the Scots Guards.
The official communiqué that announced the manner in which Jakobs met his death caused a sensation in Fleet Street. Reporters from the Daily Express tracked down people in Huntingdonshire who had witnessed the spy’s capture, and the newspaper told the official censor that it intended to publish and be damned. Swinton, Maxwell and Somervell met, and agreed that the press should perhaps be given a little more information about the secret prosecutions and executions, to ensure there was no further breach.
The Treachery Act was suspended in 1946, and repealed a few years later. During the war, MI5 could never be sure exactly how many of the Abwehr’s agents had been captured and either prosecuted and executed, or turned and run under British control. After the war, the agency established that just one Abwehr agent had operated without detection, and he had shot himself in an air raid shelter in Cambridge after running out of money and food.
The “great structure of intelligence and counter-espionage” that Swinton had described in his letter to Maxwell, and the wider allied campaign of strategic deception of which it had been a part, had been a remarkable success; possibly one of the finest in the agency’s history.
• Ian Cobain’s study of official secrecy in the UK, The History Thieves, is published by Portobello Books on 1 September.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/britain-nazi-spies-mi5-second-world-war-german-executed
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d2393f10fb97c4c8aa93404cd612d9cab1cae0de495edb4a0be396596e4ea089.json
|
|
[
"Andrew Timming"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:27 | null | 2016-08-31T08:30:32 |
The ban on police officers having visible tattoos is anachronistic and prevents some young people joining the force. The Police Federation is right to challenge it
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Ftattooed-police-officer-police-federation.json
|
en
| null |
How would you react if you met a tattooed police officer?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
How would you feel if your local copper had a tiny anchor inked behind her ear? Or if the officer who pulled you over had a full sleeve on his left arm? Earlier this week the Police Federation of England and Wales this week challenged a ban on visible tattoos “on the beat”. Although the Home Office guidance in respect of tattoos on police officers does not explicitly prohibit body art, several forces, including the Metropolitan police, have instituted outright bans on recruits with ink on the hands, neck or face, while existing officers are required to cover up their tattoos at work.
The federation’s logic is that tattoos are becoming more widely accepted in society at large, and that a ban serves to reduce the applicant pool, especially for younger people interested in becoming police officers. They are right on both points.
Accurate statistics are hard to come by in the UK, but a recent poll in the United States found that some 40% of US households had at least one person with a tattoo. It is perhaps not surprising to learn that young people are more likely to have tattoos than those of their parents’ generation. But, of course, young people don’t stay young for ever. That’s why there has been a growing acceptance of tattoos in the wider society.
Am I going to regret my tattoo? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Sarah Marsh Read more
The arguments against tattoos in the workplace are generally anachronistic. Although body art used to be associated with delinquency and a certain counter-cultural rebelliousness, these days it’s increasingly rebellious in some social circles for one not to have a tattoo.
The question of whether your body art will impact on your employment prospects depends on a number of factors.
First, can your tattoo be easily concealed? If it can be covered up by clothing, then it is unlikely to have any real effect on your employability – until, that is, your boss invites you to a pool party.
Second, what is the genre of the tattoo? Racist, sexist, sectarian and vulgar images are likely to be viewed more negatively than, say, a recreation of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
Third, is the job you are applying for primarily public-facing? Whereas body art is unlikely to have much impact on one’s employability in “behind-the-scenes” jobs, it is very likely to have a huge impact for those roles that require regular customer interaction.
Finally, how old is the target demographic of customer for your organisation? While tattoos are likely to be a liability in workplaces that attract an older clientele, they can actually be an asset in organisations that target younger consumers.
Although the police force does not have “customers” per se, it would not be unreasonable to assume that its officers regularly interact with younger people, many of whom will have tattoos themselves.
During my research on the effects of body art in the workplace, I recall a conversation with a human resources manager in the Scottish Prison Service. When recruiting for the role of prison guard, he mentioned that he was keen to interview candidates with visible body art. When I asked why, he explained that many prisoners are tattooed, and that a visible tattoo on a guard can serve as a conversation starter and a source of social bonding.
This managerial insight is consistent with historical studies of tattoos that view them as tribal phenomena indicating a shared, in-group membership. I suspect a similar logic might apply to a visibly tattooed police officer who forms a connection with at-risk members of the community, many of whom will be covered in tattoos.
If you’re thinking of heading down to your nearest body-art studio and getting that tattoo you’ve always wanted, you might want to hold that thought for a moment or two. Although tattoos are becoming more widely accepted and, in a unique set of circumstances, can even be an asset in your job search, you should still be aware that employment discrimination on the basis of tattoos is legal. Tattoo status is not a protected category, so if your employer doesn’t like your ink, you’re out of luck.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/31/tattooed-police-officer-police-federation
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bc1f9820934531ce7345e882967d9f62f29b350bdb9a58c4eb220154eefc6e0e.json
|
|
[
"Amy Lawrence"
] | 2016-08-26T22:51:02 | null | 2016-08-26T21:30:45 |
Jürgen Klopp said he has no doubts about Jordan Henderson’s form as he prepares to face Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham at White Hart Lane
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fjurgen-klopp-jordan-henderson-liverpool-tottenham.json
|
en
| null |
Jürgen Klopp backs Jordan Henderson as Liverpool rebuilding continues
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Ten months and 55 games into his Liverpool adventure, Jürgen Klopp returns to the place where it all began, White Hart Lane, a game after which the German said there was no need to “sprinkle magic dust” to transform the team he inherited. on Saturday, well into the evolution he is working on, Klopp is pleased with the progress that has been made but is still searching for more improvement, more refinement, more consistency.
“There was a big sign of quality. We have changed things,” he says. “Now there are quality players in defence, in midfield, on the wing and other players who can still improve like Divock [Origi], Phil [Coutinho] can improve, even Roberto [Firmino] can make the next step. Even the English guys can make the next step, Hendo [Jordan Henderson] had a difficult season with injuries and it is the first time he is fit since I’ve been here over a long term. These are all the things I was thinking about. I still think I don’t need magic dust.”
Jürgen Klopp’s impact injects self-belief and endeavour into Liverpool Read more
Klopp took a moment to back his captain, Henderson, who has struggled to find his most convincing form in the season’s early matches. “I see him every day in training so if I was doubting him then he would not be here. I have no doubt,” he says. “It is about decision making, not to too often make the special things, just more what you need to do rather than what you want to do.
“A Liverpool player, that is at the club with not so much success in recent years, is always doubted a little bit. They always have to show they are not the reason we have not made the next step. Of course that is not the reason. There are more reasons for not being successful and it keeps these players always trying to convince everyone. Stay cool, try to play football. It is not that difficult. Not only for Jordan but for other players.”
It is not so much the dramatic effects of magic dust as the subtle tweaks that are on the agenda. Down the touchline at Tottenham, Klopp confronts a coach with a similar mission. When they met last October, with a goalless draw that he described at the time as “eager”and “hectic”, both managers were still in a period of fundamental change. For Liverpool it was the shock of the new, and all the freshness and ideas Klopp would bring. For Tottenham, Mauricio Pochettino had been there a little longer, since 2014, but it was still early days in how he was reshaping the team to turn them into title challengers.
“Last season people had big expectations or a big question mark about how we would develop our squad, our team, I think it was very hard work to improve and develop our style of play,” explains Pochettino.
“Because for a lot of players it was their first season, like Dele Alli, for Eric Dier it was his first complete season as a holding midfielder, a new position for him, different things like that. Sometimes people don’t realise how important last season was. We learned a lot and improved a lot and it’s true that it will be tougher this season to try to succeed again.”
He is looking forward to trying to get some time to work properly with the team but regrets challenges as tricky as Liverpool come so soon, when so many teams are struggling to be ready.
Hugo Lloris set to miss four weeks with Spurs after suffering hamstring injury Read more
“It’s impossible after the Euros with a very short break to recover to start again. To start the Premier League after two weeks’ training, to start international competition, it’s very tough for the players. We want to create the possibility for our players to be fit for the whole season. We are a little bit late in our development for this new season. After the international break we can start to work on small details and develop different possibilities to play linked with our work on the pitch.”
Three points from a big game, before restarting with the transfer window closed, the international break over, and better fitness levels all round is a huge incentive for both Pochettino and Klopp.
A third consecutive Premier League away trip for Liverpool brings its own challenges in the search for greater consistency. They need to see more of the zest they demonstrated on the break when they won 4-3 at Arsenal, and less of the bluntness that left them open to a sucker punch at Burnley.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/26/jurgen-klopp-jordan-henderson-liverpool-tottenham
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/32f764f7d1a5fbb28be78fcec4f1224e2a33ac42b4af5c0f24c1bfb6910a3884.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-27T08:49:16 | null | 2016-08-27T07:01:01 |
Numbers of the endangered butterfly, once pronounced extinct in the UK, have reached their highest level in 80 years, according to conservationists
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Flarge-blue-butterfly-thriving-in-uk-since-reintroduction.json
|
en
| null |
Large blue butterfly thriving in UK since reintroduction
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A butterfly once pronounced extinct in the UK has been seen in record numbers this year, according to conservationists.
There were over 10,000 adult large blue butterflies in Gloucestershire and Somerset – the largest concentration of the species known in the world.
Conservationists said the findings contradicted widely reported warnings that 2016 could be the worst year on record for British butterflies.
In total more than 250,000 eggs were laid by large blue butterflies this summer on the abundant thyme and marjoram flowers at the Daneway Banks reserve in Gloucestershire and the Green Down reserve in Somerset.
Prof Jeremy Thomas, chairman of the Joint Committee for the Restoration of the Large Blue Butterfly, said the numbers of the butterfly, which was reintroduced to the UK in 1984, were its highest for 80 years.
“The success of this project is testimony to what large scale collaboration between conservationists, scientists and volunteers can achieve,” he said.
“Its greatest legacy is that it demonstrates that we can reverse the decline of globally-threatened species once we understand the driving factors.”
The large blue has a bizarre life-cycle.
Having fed for three weeks on the flowerbuds of wild thyme or marjoram, the caterpillar produces scents and songs that trick red ants into believing it is one of their own grubs and is carried underground into the ants’ nest and placed with the ant brood.
The caterpillar spends the next 10 months feeding on the grubs before pupating in the nest the following year and then emerging to crawl above ground as a butterfly.
Despite over 50 years of effort to halt its decline, the large blue butterfly was pronounced extinct in Britain in 1979.
Its reintroduction in 1984 was based on the discovery that large blue caterpillars can only survive in the nest of one particular species of red ant.
Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, added: “This is fantastic news for this globally endangered butterfly whose extraordinary life cycle makes its conservation very challenging.
“Scrub clearance and careful grazing of wildflower-rich grasslands is key to ensuring a future for this beautiful insect.
“This special management also helps a huge diversity of wild plants and other insects to thrive.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/27/large-blue-butterfly-thriving-in-uk-since-reintroduction
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b44d038f09552730152aebf9d29d35ecf991d9275ea6c52a910a80dc8f9218df.json
|
|
[
"Josh Halliday"
] | 2016-08-26T13:01:42 | null | 2016-08-26T12:14:59 |
Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, accused of killing Jalal Uddin, also posed for photo next to street sign altered to read ‘war zone’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fimam-trial-jury-shown-photo-of-mohammed-hussain-syeedy-in-stab-proof-vest-jalal-uddin.json
|
en
| null |
Imam murder trial jury shown photo of suspect in stab-proof vest
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Jurors have been shown an image of the alleged Islamic State supporter accused of murdering a respected imam in Greater Manchester posing for the camera in a stab-proof vest.
The picture of Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, 21, was presented at the trial for the murder of Jalal Uddin, 71, in February.
In another photograph shown to the jury, Syeedy points a finger to the sky while holding a white flag over a Rochdale road sign that had been changed to read “war zone”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syeedy is shown raising a single finger to the sky while holding a white flag over sign reading ‘war zone’. Photograph: Greater Manchester police
Syeedy is accused along with Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, of murdering Uddin. They allegedly viewed the elderly imam’s use of healing amulets as “black magic”.
The trial at Manchester crown court heard how Syeedy and Kadir stalked Uddin around the streets of Rochdale before Kadir attacked him with a hammer-like object in a playground.
The pair mounted covert surveillance on Uddin six months before the killing on 18 February when they discovered he practised ruqya, a form of Islamic healing, the court has heard.
Ruqya, which involves the use of amulets known as taweez, is considered a sin worthy of severe punishment – including death – by some Salafi Muslims and Isis supporters, jurors have been told.
Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told the jury there was “clear and cogent” evidence that Syeedy and Kadir supported Isis.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syeedy poses with a ‘Rochdale 2 Syria’ banner. Photograph: Greater Manchester police
In another photograph shown to jurors, Syeedy poses with a “Rochdale 2 Syria” banner before embarking on what they described as an aid trip in 2013. He smiles alongside friends wearing black badges that show either a Kalashnikov or curved sword, widely used by Isis and other jihadi groups.
Jurors have been told that the co-accused Kadir is being hunted by police after he fled to Turkey three days after the killing.
Syeedy was shown on CCTV driving his Vauxhall Astra closely behind Uddin before dropping Kadir off at the gates of a playground before the attack at 8.42pm.
Kadir, from Oldham, inflicted “repeated forceful blows” to Uddin’s head and mouth with a weapon believed to be a hammer, the court has heard, leaving him with severe skull fractures.
Syeedy, from Rochdale, could then be seen picking Kadir up at the other side of the playground at 8.43pm.
Jurors have heard that Syeedy admits being with Kadir before and after the attack but denies knowing that the older defendant planned to murder Uddin.
The trial continues.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/26/imam-trial-jury-shown-photo-of-mohammed-hussain-syeedy-in-stab-proof-vest-jalal-uddin
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6b69846a381e0d3ed2ab4645b4af27e022ea39ffe244833d2096e62ab3b20d87.json
|
|
[
"Paolo Bandini"
] | 2016-08-26T13:18:35 | null | 2016-08-18T13:59:03 |
Despite questions about how Gonzalo Higuaín will fit in, Juventus have added yet more depth and variation and are strong favourites to seal a sixth-straight title
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fblog%2F2016%2Faug%2F18%2Fjuventus-serie-a-title-race-higuain-inter-napoli.json
|
en
| null |
Juventus to dominate Serie A title race but there will be plenty of drama
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In the five years since Germany overtook Italy in Uefa’s rankings, stealing a Champions League berth away from clubs on the peninsula, pundits have pontificated at length on the lessons that Serie A might learn from the Bundesliga. Many have called for a greater focus on youth and homegrown talent, as well as the construction of stadiums.
Juventus were ahead on both fronts, and have reaped the rewards as they romped to five consecutive Scudetti but 2016 may go down as the year when they took the Teutonic template a step further. Instead of drawing inspiration from Germany’s top division, the Bianconeri now appear to simply be imitating Germany’s top club.
In a move straight from the Bayern Munich playbook, Juventus entrenched their domestic dominance this summer by prising star players away from their two closest rivals. From Napoli, they took Gonzalo Higuaín – fresh from the most prolific season in Serie A history. From Roma, they took Miralem Pjanic – whose 12 assists were joint-most in the league last season.
Perhaps Juventus overpaid for Higuaín. The decision to invest €90m in a player who will turn 29 before Christmas already looked a little reckless before he showed up for pre-season looking decidedly doughy around his midsection.
Even when he does get up to full speed, awkward questions will remain about where Higuaín fits into Massimiliano Allegri’s tactics. The Argentinian has done his best work as the central striker in a 4-3-3 but to accommodate him there would require shifting Paulo Dybala – coming off a brilliant first season as the deeper-lying forward in Juventus’s two-man attack – out to the wing.
Pjanic, by contrast, was a steal at €32m and should go a long way toward filling the creative void left by Paul Pogba’s departure. Juventus will miss the Frenchman’s ball-winning talents and may yet add another midfielder to compensate but in the meantime have strengthened elsewhere with the additions of Dani Alves, Mehdi Benatia and Marko Pjaca.
Mirth about girth: Gonzalo Higuaín brings fans’ pet pastime to the fore | Jacob Steinberg Read more
Overall the team who finished nine points clear at the top of Serie A have added yet more depth and variation to their squad but before we give up hope altogether of a title race in 2016-17, perhaps we should pause to listen to the new Internazionale manager, Frank de Boer.
“[Juventus’s] squad is exceptional …” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “But at the same time Pogba has left. We need to understand how they are going to play now in midfield, and it’s not a given that they will be stronger than last year. They have great names, but we don’t know yet if the great names will know how to be a team.”
Even if not, though, who will challenge them? Are Napoli still capable of fighting for a title without Higuaín? An optimist may point out the man who gets the first shot at replacing him, Manolo Gabbiadini, has had a quietly impressive strike rate since joining the club in January 2015 – averaging one goal for every 107.7 minutes played in league matches. Napoli’s newly acquired alternative, the 22-year-old Poland striker Arkadiusz Milik, is not too shabby either.
The Partenopei are expected to make further additions but their prospects of challenging Juventus will rest more heavily on their ability to keep hold of the players they already have. Kalidou Koulibaly and Lorenzo Insigne were key figures in the run to second place last season but both are said to be disgruntled over the club’s failure to offer them improved contracts, and each has plenty of admirers at home and abroad.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest New Inter manager Frank de Boer and his players stroll the streets of Limerick before the friendly against Brendan Rogers’ Celtic. Photograph: Claudio Villa - Inter/Inter via Getty Images
Roma, third last season, have needed to run just to stand still this summer, using a large chunk of their transfer budget to convert loanees such as Mohamed Salah and Stephan El Shaarawy into permanent signings. Unfortunately, they were not able to work the same magic on Lucas Digne, who returned to Paris Saint-Germain before signing for Barcelona.
It is not entirely clear how the left-back will be replaced. The summer arrivals Juan Jesus and Thomas Vermaelen have each played the position but lack the pace to get forward and overlap with Roma’s flying wingers as Digne did. Bruno Peres, an astute addition from Torino, can bring an equivalent energy to the opposite flank but where does that leave Alessandro Florenzi?
If nothing else, Roma have options. And although they have lost one world-class midfielder in Pjanic, the hope is they may be about to rediscover another one – with Kevin Strootman back at last from the knee injury and complications that kept him off the pitch for the best part of two years.
Are there any other teams capable of competing for the title? What about De Boer’s Inter? This has been an eventful summer for the Nerazzurri, who were taken over by the Chinese retail giant Suning in June but only parted ways with Roberto Mancini on 8 August.
How to explain this late change of direction? The Italian press have noted the owners’ close relationship with Kia Joorabchian – the agent to Carlos Tevez – with whom Mancini did not exactly see eye-to-eye in his Manchester City days. It has not escaped the attention that both De Boer and Inter’s top remaining transfer target, João Mário, is also represented by Joorabchian.
Whatever the circumstances, the Dutchman has inherited a squad of significant potential. It is easy to forget Inter were top of the table last Christmas and had room for growth this season even before any signings were made. Geoffrey Kondogbia is 23 and should improve with a year of Serie A experience under his belt. Ivan Perisic, too, can kick on after an impressive Euro 2016 showing.
De Boer has some welcome dilemmas ahead as he seeks to incorporate those two into his starting XI along with the newly acquired Éver Banega, Antonio Candreva and, perhaps, João Mário. Even the manager, though, doubts he can make it all work right away. Asked by Gazzetta how long it would take him to make his mark on the team, he replied with a specific: “Four months”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roma may have lost Miralem Pjanic, but welcome back midfielder Kevin Strootman from a knee injury that has kept him out for almost two years. Photograph: Luciano Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images
A slow start from any of the frontrunners could favour Fiorentina, who have undergone no such major upheaval. The biggest question facing Paulo Sousa is how to incorporate Giuseppe Rossi into his side after the forward returned from a moderately productive six-month spell at Levante. Well, that and how to break it to Cristian Tello that he is not in Florence for a stag do.
And what of Milan, as they prepare to move into the post-Berlusconi era? The slow progress of the Rossoneri’s own Chinese takeover has prevented them from making significant forays into the transfer market and left the new manager, Vincenzo Montella, to instead build something from the ashes of a miserable end to last season. At least, with no European competition to distract them, Milan can put all of their energies into improving on their seventh place.
Sassuolo, who pipped them to Italy’s final Europa League berth, may find it tricky to repeat such an achievement with Sime Vrsaljko and Nicola Sansone having departed. At least they have held on to Domenico Berardi.
Elsewhere fascinating sub-plots abound. Can tiny Crotone succeed where Carpi and Frosinone failed by extending their first top-flight jaunt beyond one season? Will Mario Balotelli return to Serie A, perhaps with Bologna or Chievo? And what indignity will next befall Lazio, following a summer in which Marcelo Bielsa resigned after two days as the manager, and the owner, Claudio Lotito, was reported to have very nearly scared off a signing by smashing a plate of rocket and bresaola?
We may not see a compelling title race in Serie A this season. For better or for worse, however, such as Lotito guarantee there will always be drama.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/aug/18/juventus-serie-a-title-race-higuain-inter-napoli
|
en
| 2016-08-18T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c627a4d42fb158d00ed9ba3d489a2dab4e7932ae41d2ed4d472893321ced6066.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-27T06:59:15 | null | 2016-08-27T06:00:00 |
My optician has recommended them along with single-vision ones for desk work and I’m wondering whether I would need both
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fare-varifocal-glasses-easy-to-get-used-to.json
|
en
| null |
Are varifocal glasses easy to get used to?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.
This week’s question:
My optician has recommended varifocals at £500 and single-vision glasses for desk work at £250. My neighbour handed back her varifocals because she couldn’t get on with them. Do I need both pairs or is my optician spinning me a line? How easy is it to adapt to varifocals?
Do you have a problem readers could solve? Email your suggestions to money@theguardian.com or write to us at Money, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/27/are-varifocal-glasses-easy-to-get-used-to
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d53263498610a0f9d20dd80a951ad7fb2f60bd8dfd692ae036df048faf0b8805.json
|
|
[
"Anna Tims"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:06 | null | 2016-08-05T22:45:17 |
From Hampshire to Monmouthshire, these properties are sure to take your fancy
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F05%2Fhomes-with-follies-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Homes with follies - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sway, near Lymington, Hampshire
It’s thought to be the world’s tallest unreinforced concrete tower, built by an estate owner in the 1880s to prove the versatility of the material. It generates an annual income of £34,000 by letting telecoms firms house transmitters on three of the 14 storeys. The visual drama takes its toll on the legs as each of the four en suite bedrooms is on a different floor, up a spiral staircase. Price on application. John D Wood , 01590 540 064
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2016/aug/05/homes-with-follies-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c069a4bf94049ded33c836ff41a9143b2c36f6fd3c1a4783aeabcfe8d7dc2723.json
|
|
[
"Jules Montague"
] | 2016-08-29T08:59:15 | null | 2016-08-29T06:50:54 |
Having a baby by sperm donation is an intensely personal and emotional process. So what happens when you discover that the donor has a genetic health disorder?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fsperm-donor-deceivers-dream-turns-nightmare.json
|
en
| null |
From dream to nightmare: when your sperm donor has secrets
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sperm donor 9623 looked good on paper. An IQ of 160. A bachelor’s degree in neuroscience, a master’s in artificial intelligence, en route to a PhD in neuroscience engineering. A passion for “crystallography, algorithms and fitness”. Ontario couple Elizabeth Hanson and Angela Collins thought they had found the perfect father for their baby.
Seven years after their son was born, Collins and Hanson discovered that donor 9623 was a college dropout with schizophrenia, a narcissistic personality disorder and a criminal history. He had spent eight months in prison for burglary, and 10 years on probation.
The sperm bank had inadvertently included the donor’s name, Christian Aggeles, in an email to the couple. A Google search did the rest. His stepfather had testified in court that Aggeles’s psychotic episodes began aged 19, well before he started donating in Georgia. Aggeles’s sperm led to the birth of at least 36 children worldwide.
“It was like a dream turned nightmare in an instant,” said Collins. The couple, alongside at least three other families, have filed lawsuits against the Georgia-based sperm bank, Xytex Corporation, which also supplied sperm to British couples. Xytex denies wrongdoing.
Such cases are not unique. Like Collins, Hanson and their son, many families and individuals are now coming to terms with vital information that their donors withheld.
The ramifications of such discoveries can be immense. “The most important entity to me is [my son] potentially facing a very debilitating lifestyle,” Collins says. “I felt like I was duped by Xytex and I failed my son for having chosen Xytex. In hindsight, a hitchhiker on the side of the road would have been a far more responsible option for conceiving a child.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Families have filed lawsuits against the Georgia-based sperm bank, Xytex Corporation. Photograph: David Goldman/AP
What level of risk do Aggeles’s genes confer? The architecture of mental health disorders is complex. The genetic component of schizophrenia, explains Professor Cathryn Lewis, professor of genetic epidemiology and statistics at King’s College London, is not a single gene, but is combined across many genes. “There are likely to be thousands of inherited variants that control risk of schizophrenia. Each change slightly increases or decreases our risk, but none of them alone will enable us to predict whether someone is likely to develop schizophrenia.”
Even exciting new findings in the C4 gene require careful interpretation. “It’s a single piece in a large genetic jigsaw puzzle,” Lewis says. “Testing one gene tells us nothing about an individual’s risk of developing schizophrenia.”
Mental health conditions also reflect a mix of interacting environment and social factors. Not to mention that many people with schizophrenia respond to treatment and live full, productive lives.
Donor anonymity was abolished in the UK in 2005. Donor-conceived offspring are now legally entitled, at the age of 18, to information on their donor’s identity. However, this was not retrospectively applied: those conceived before April 2005 (that’s 21,000 people born between 1991 and 2004 alone) cannot identify their donor unless the donor steps forward voluntarily. Some are never even told they were donor-conceived in the first place.
Tyler Blackwell discovered as a teenager in Maryland that he has 35 half-siblings. His second surprise: having the same condition that his donor father, John (not his real name) had not revealed. John’s sister found the Blackwells through a family ancestry site. It transpired that John, who had not replied to their correspondence, had an aortic aneurysm, which had ruptured at the age of 43. He had survived. At least three other family members were similarly affected. Tyler saw a cardiologist as a precaution, was diagnosed with an aneurysm and underwent surgery. Without an operation on an aneurysm of this type, the mortality from rupture is up to 97%. When rupture occurs, patients usually die within six hours. “There is no one who knew about it,” said his mother of the sperm bank involved. “If I could foretell the future, I would have picked a different donor.”
Sperm donation laws can lead to untold heartache – for both donors and recipients | Margaret Ambrose Read more
Financial incentives could underlie some instances of deception. However, the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) sets the limit for sperm donors at £35 per clinic visit and egg donors at £750 per cycle of donation, plus expenses. These limits, it states, aim to reward altruism and discourage coercion. Rules vary internationally. One California cryobank “reimburses your time and expenses with compensation of up to $1,500/month” with “periodic incentives such as movie tickets or gift certificates for extra time and effort expended by participants”.
Danish sperm donor 7042 unwittingly passed on neurofibromatosis to at least 11 of his children, after his sperm was used in clinics across the US, Canada, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Thailand and the UK. Neurofibromatosis is associated with brain and nerve tumours, bone deformities, visual impairment, high blood pressure and learning difficulties. Offspring have a 50% risk of inheriting it. Denmark has since mandated that donor sperm can be used in a maximum of 12 inseminations. In the UK, no more than 10 families can be created using egg or sperm from a single donor. Donated eggs are not risk-free, but sperm donors usually have more offspring who can pass on inherited conditions to the next generation.
There is a point where you have to draw the line, and say we’re not creating designer babies here
There is no such thing as reproduction without risk. There is, however, an ethical responsibility towards the child to be conceived and their hopeful parents. If a donor develops a genetic condition years after donation, there is no system at present that enforces disclosure.
Donors now must test negative for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, with further screening informed by ethnicity – such as cystic fibrosis in those of Caucasian descent and sickle-cell disease in African and Afro-Caribbean populations. Guidelines state that potential donors should be assessed for conditions with a genetic component – cleft palate, spina bifida, congenital heart malformations, psychosis and others – but that decisions on eligibility should be individualised.
These screening regulations do not always apply to the unknown number of UK citizens who travel abroad to find donors, use unlicensed clinics or buy home-insemination kits online. Although psychological evaluation is required by most international authorities, this will not bar donors who have not yet developed symptoms of a serious mental health disorder. For them, the diagnostic tool is time.
Genetic screening is more affordable and comprehensive than ever before. So, should we turn away from the donor’s account and towards the laboratory? Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield, is wary. “I think the perfect genome probably doesn’t exist, so it’s really a question of where the line should be drawn. Only about 4% of men who come forward to be sperm donors are accepted. If we were to impose a whole new set of exclusion criteria based on theoretical risks, it is possible there won’t be any sperm donors at all.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frozen sperm stored in a sperm bank. Photograph: monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images/iStockphoto
With enhanced screening, donors might be diagnosed with genetic conditions that would have remained undiscovered for ever, or are untreatable. Perhaps there is an argument for not knowing.
Kevin, who works in photography in London, is not only a donor-conceived person but a donor himself. He believes that prospective parents should know as much as possible about the donor’s medical history. “But there is a point where you have to draw the line, and say we’re not creating designer babies here,” he adds.
He understands the distress of Elizabeth Hanson and Angela Collins, yet worries about reading too much into specific cases. “It’s a shame if people let it overshadow the industry and take it to be some sort of wide-reaching corruption. It is one story. Every day there are lots of babies being born to couples who have fertility problems and that’s much more important to remember.”
Eleven offspring have been born from his donations. Why did he donate? “I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t donated. Somebody did that and that’s why I am here.”
Jess Cresswell discovered aged 28 that she was donor-conceived. Seven years later, she still does not know who her biological father is, but feels her parents gave her the best life they could. Since some of her own family medical history is missing, how does she feel about donor screening?
“I think they should be screened but I also think that, just because they have some sort of hereditary condition, they shouldn’t necessarily be excluded. It’s the parents’ discretion; some people would rather have a child knowing there’s a risk of picking something up than not, if that was their only option.”
It is now easier than ever for donor-conceived people to find their genetic family. The US Donor Sibling Registry has helped connect more than 10,900 people with their half-siblings and/or their donors. Nearly 70% of those who sign up match with a biological relative, and almost 80% of this group match instantly. The UK has a Donor Sibling Link site.
Direct-to-consumer genetic tests have revolutionised this space. In 2005, a 15-year-old sent a saliva sample to an online service, had his genetic code uploaded, used a tracking website and met his biological father 10 days later. Kevin found a half-sister through a donor-sibling registry and two half-siblings through ancestry sites. He later inadvertently discovered some of his donor’s details. Two hours on, Google revealed his donor’s name. The two have since stayed in contact.
One last thing: Aggeles received mental health treatment and picked up a degree in cognitive science two decades after he first registered at university. He is now working on a master’s in artificial intelligence.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/29/sperm-donor-deceivers-dream-turns-nightmare
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d8364cd1960c7ddae0442de6987827133bd1a45404f400ef72ef796c6146f87a.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-29T18:52:35 | null | 2016-08-29T16:54:50 |
Letters: We have just enjoyed a week at De Haan on the Belgian coast. Over a kilometre stretch of shore there were lifeguards positioned every 200 metres on raised chairs
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fbeach-safety-lessons-from-across-the-water.json
|
en
| null |
Beach safety lessons from across the water
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
It was comforting to hear that Camber Sands would be enjoying lifeguard cover during the bank holiday weekend, but your report (27 August) pointed to the patchy picture regarding lifeguard cover in general along Britain’s long coastline. In our experience the relevant authorities need do no more than look across the English Channel.
Like the UK, France has a long coastline with an abundance of beaches, but we experienced a very different approach to safety on our recent holiday on the coast near Boulogne and Le Touquet. At each resort there were teams of attentive lifeguards at all times in the daylight hours, actively monitoring the many thousands of holidaymakers. They had defined zones, guards at the water’s edge, boats patrolling just offshore and on-beach vehicles, with a rescue station at the top of the beach in every case.
Each time the tide came in, the lifeguards would order everyone out of the water. One guard explained that the tide comes in so fast, like a low tidal wave, that it is very dangerous, especially for children or weak swimmers. Every beach had full signage on display, in French and English, showing just what happens in such circumstances.
In short, we experienced well-organised and efficient lifeguard services on every beach, even those next to small villages and towns.
Patrick and Jenny Coffey
Heathfield, East Sussex
• We have just enjoyed a week at De Haan on the Belgian coast. Over a kilometre stretch of shore there were lifeguards positioned every 200 metres on raised chairs. In addition there were four lifeguards on foot patrol. There were two motorised dinghies patrolling the sea about 50 metres offshore, each with two lifeguards aboard.
According to a lifeguard on duty on Friday there are 16 lifeguards present throughout the day during July and August. The costs are met by the government budget. There have been no drownings in more than 30 years.
I can’t find figures for the numbers of holidaymakers on the beach at peak time, but based on my observation I estimate they total many thousands (but fewer than those reported at Camber Sands). The primary imperative of government is to protect its citizens, and it is clear Belgium takes this responsibility seriously.
Charles Groutage
Earl Shilton, Leicestershire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
|
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/29/beach-safety-lessons-from-across-the-water
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/11b2c80b1ee74ac40a6827053320183edaadea38b212663169c32b6eb46f4355.json
|
|
[
"Dan Glaister"
] | 2016-08-27T22:49:35 | null | 2016-08-27T21:00:13 |
Goodbye soggy chips, hello halloumi wraps: the motorway stop in the Good Food Guide with a menu to please the most discerning drivers
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fmotorway-service-stations-masterchef-little-chef-gloucester-services-m5-foodie.json
|
en
| null |
More MasterChef than Little Chef - service stations now a foodie destination
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A destination restaurant, as popularised by the Michelin Guide, is usually one that warrants a special trip while travelling by car in France. The compilers of this year’s Good Food Guide have identified a uniquely British version of the phenomenon: an establishment offering the finest food and you don’t need to leave the motorway to find it.
Gloucester Services, nestled into the hillside on both the north- and south-bound carriageways of the M5 between junction 11A and junction 12, last week achieved the unlikely distinction of becoming the first-ever motorway service station to be included in the guide. On an incognito visit, one of the guide’s compilers sampled the hot wrap with roasted mushrooms and goat’s cheese, accompanied by a crisp salad and followed by the home-made chocolate brownie. The rest is motoring history.
If the early vision of motorway service station pioneers – of a sophisticated, relaxing experience akin to the roadside cafes of 1950s Italy – became sullied by the recessionary Britain of the 1970s and 80s, when service stations were ports of call for coachloads of football hooligans rather than elegant travellers, could it be that Gloucester Services is returning our weary travellers to a happier place, with other operators sure to follow?
“We saw the sign on the motorway: Farmshop,” said Mike Nurse (sweet potato slice), who was driving to Exeter with his wife Leonora (fish and chips). “It’s an intriguing combination that demands your attention. When we came to pay, I thought ‘Well, that is quite expensive’, but when you’ve had it, it’s well worth the money.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The interior of Gloucester Services (southbound. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Connie Payne (flatbread with roast veg and halloumi), on her way from Suffolk to the Forest of Dean with Brian Skilton (focaccia with mozzarella and mixed salad), was treating Gloucester Services as a mid-trip destination restaurant. Having chanced upon it three weeks ago, she planned her latest trip to include a stop. “It was wonderful because it was different,” she said. “We don’t like unhealthy food and we don’t like service stations. If this was local, I’d shop here.”
As much as the undeniable quality of the food, 80% of it locally sourced, visitors are struck by the distinctiveness of the experience: there is no ambient music, no slot machines, no view or sound of the motorway, no franchises, and the shop includes a fishmonger and a butcher. “It takes people a few moments when they come through the door because they’re used to seeing brands,” said operations manager Mark Chamberlain. “Even this morning I heard someone say, ‘There’s no Starbucks!’ ”
“I’m just happy not to see a McDonald’s,” said Niall Singh (curried veggie wrap), en route from Birmingham to Penzance with Amy Wallis (halloumi flatbread). “It’s different, isn’t it? It isn’t more expensive than a Costa and I’d rather give my money to a local business.”
For Chamberlain and Westmorland Motorway Services, the company that owns both Gloucester Services and the Tebay Services on the M6, local is a key part of the plan, with a third of the 400 Gloucester staff made up of local long-term unemployed, and the produce policy generating £1.5m worth of orders with local food producers in 2015, the first full year of operations. Although only the northbound site was open then, it still won the title of Best Newcomer in Observer Food Monthly’s annual awards.
Dr David Lawrence, an associate professor at Kingston University and the author of Food On the Move: The Extraordinary World of the Motorway Service Area, sees the arrival of the high-quality service station as the product of changing lifestyles as well as a rekindling of the history of what one reviewer of his book derided as “emblems of boredom, inertia and placelessness”.
“We are more than ever on the move,” said Lawrence. “There’s a significant percentage of Britain on the motorway somewhere at any one time. The more aware service station operators are realising there’s an opportunity to give people better quality time. Service stations are beginning to become somewhere it is acceptable to stop. It’s about some kind of renaissance of the wayside places similar to the coaching inn.”
The poet Simon Armitage was so drawn to the otherness of motorway service stations that in 2010 he published a collection titled The Motorway Service Station as a Destination in its Own Right. “I was using the motorway service station as the centrepoint of solitude and sadness”, he said, “and I was also remembering stories from when I was younger of the motorways being empty and how people would go to the motorway services for a meal on a Saturday night. They’re still a source of bafflement to us because they’re both public and very private, patrolled spaces, odd zones, like little Vaticans with forbidden service roads.”
Armitage notes that he is not the first poet to grapple with the motorway service station. In his 1979 poem In the M5 Restaurant, the late poet laureate Ted Hughes attempted to extract some meaning from his lot fuelled not by today’s offering of Asian bean salads and brie and carrot chutney toasties but nothing more glamorous than “illusory coffee/And a gluey quasi-pie”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Butchery manager Gary Bolger. Photograph: Dan Glaister for the Observer
Chamberlain, the operations manager, has little truck with Armitage’s notion of the service station as destination: “We’re not allowed to be a destination, so we don’t use that word. We’re here to service the motorway network,” he said, before adding: “We have had people who want to book a table for lunch, people who want to book it for Christmas dinner.”
Like something out of a JG Ballard story, Gloucester Services has almost become a community in its own right. Fishmonger Frank Phillips – “I’m the world’s first motorway fishmonger” – says that 50% of his customers are local people. He is not sure that he understands the other 50%. “All that fish is off Cornish boats,” he said. “It amazes me that we get people stopping here saying they’re on their way to Cornwall and they take the fish with them.”
Butchery manager Gary Bolger has similar tales to tell. “It’s crazy,” he said. “We get a phenomenal amount of repeat business. I had a man from Wolverhampton who stopped and bought some meat on his way to Cornwall six weeks ago, then he bought some on his way back, and this week he made an order for £200. It’s mad, it blows me away. At the end of the day we’re in a service station.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/27/motorway-service-stations-masterchef-little-chef-gloucester-services-m5-foodie
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3bb53737339abdb1d0e56dd578596d782f566153d44ad5c9c581938c17d527e1.json
|
|
[
"Steven Morris"
] | 2016-08-31T08:50:33 | null | 2016-08-31T08:39:33 |
Man pulled from the sea but declared dead at the scene while 12-year-old girl taken to hospital in Plymouth
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fman-dies-scuba-diving-accident-cornwall.json
|
en
| null |
Man dies in scuba diving accident off coast of Cornwall
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A man has died and a 12-year-old girl is being treated in hospital following a scuba diving accident off the coast of Cornwall.
An air ambulance and coastguard helicopter were scrambled to the hamlet of East Portholland near St Austell on the south coast on Tuesday but the man and girl were both pulled from the sea by members of the public.
The man was declared dead at the scene while the girl was taken to Derriford hospital in Plymouth. Her condition was not thought to be serious.
Devon and Cornwall police are investigating the accident and has not yet named the two people, who are members of the same family.
Supt Ian Drummond Smith said: “The family involved were from outside the area and are believed to have been holidaying in Cornwall. This appears to be a tragic scuba diving accident, and our thoughts are with the man’s relatives and friends at this time.”
The tragedy is the latest in a series of seaside deaths this summer. Five young men died at Camber Sands in East Sussex last week while Londoners Rudy Bruynius and his two-year-old daughter Mckayla Bruynius both lost their lives after being swept off rocks and into the sea at Newquay in north Cornwall earlier in August.
In a statement on the latest Cornish death, the force said: “Police were notified at 5.12pm on Tuesday 30 August that a 45-year-old man had been retrieved from the sea by members of the public at East Portholland along with a 12-year-old girl.
”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/31/man-dies-scuba-diving-accident-cornwall
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4fcf99eaa8370af3ead53168842bd3bfbb4f0f8e28a6a70b6a93f5739f3a2eb9.json
|
|
[
"Caroline Davies"
] | 2016-08-30T16:50:11 | null | 2016-08-30T16:23:32 |
Lisa Steen tells of ‘two years in the wilderness of the medically unexplained’, in essay published posthumously
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fgp-lisa-steen-criticises-colleagues-cancer-death-hypochondriac.json
|
en
| null |
GP labelled hypochondriac criticises colleagues after dying from cancer
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A GP who died from a rare form of kidney cancer has warned of the difficulties doctors face in getting treatment for themselves, in an emotional blog published posthumously.
Dr Lisa Steen described her anger at colleagues for failing to go the extra mile to help identify the disease and for dismissing her as a hypochondriac, in the essay published on BMJ.com.
The 43-year-old mother-of-two from Cambridge wrote of spending “two years wandering in the wilderness of the medically unexplained” before finally being diagnosed in July 2014, by which time the cancer had spread to her bones. She died in February.
She wrote: “I do not know how long I’ll live. It probably won’t be for many weeks. But right now I am glad to be alive. I am grateful for the expensive drug which is holding back the cancer.
“I am angry at being left in the medically unexplained wilderness and I did not like the way my colleagues looked at me, when they believed me to have health anxiety.”
Nine in 10 GPs fear missing symptoms due to workload – survey Read more
Steen said hers was a cautionary tale for all health professionals who get ill, and for doctors treating other health professionals.
Affected by myriad symptoms, she eventually attended her GP in August 2012. Various tests failed to lead to a diagnosis and her condition was put down to health anxiety.
Steen, who was a GP for the drug and alcohol service Inclusion, wrote of her frustration at trying to describe her symptoms to doctors, and trying to diagnose herself.
She tried to explain that the symptoms might be connected to a benign carotid body tumour she had had when she was younger.
Her attempts to get investigatory tests and treatment were thwarted, she said, because of a “fear of looking even more ‘anxious’ or suffering from ‘health anxiety’, aka a hypochondriac.”
Eventually, embarrassed by being off work with no diagnosis, she returned to work. “I still knew there was something wrong, but it seemed fruitless going to see specialists. It was so humiliating, feeling like a goldfish with no voice. Watching doctors’ faces glaze over at the multitude of symptoms. Trying to fit it all in with work and looking after my family.”
After two years and prompted by weight loss, a routine ultrasound revealed a mass.
Steen wrote: “If any one of the doctors I saw had gone another mile, they would’ve stumbled upon it.”
But, she said, “they were reluctant to lay their hands on and examine a fellow medic”. And on her part, she said, “I was too embarrassed about my ‘psychiatric’ condition, too confused by not having the whole answer ready.”
She added: “My story is a cautionary tale to all of us health professionals when we get ill. Illness is somehow not the done thing. It upsets our ‘them/us’ belief system, which helps us cope with the horror of what we see.
“Mine is a cautionary tale to those treating health professionals, and those of us who are unwell – doctors do get ill, they don’t always know what is wrong with themselves. Give them a class A service because it is actually harder getting treated as a doctor than a layperson.”
Her husband, Raymond Brown, told the Telegraph: “They didn’t seem to be taking her too seriously, particularly because she had been diagnosed with health anxiety, she was being looked at as a hypochondriac.”
He added: “She just wants doctors to be aware when they are treating doctors to give them really good treatment and they have to be aware they are a patient and they don’t know everything. They need to be treated like a patient, not like a doctor.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/30/gp-lisa-steen-criticises-colleagues-cancer-death-hypochondriac
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1bd8e0162572c0ab29ce3946f93aed3e691d1bf92720502ee811cd283885f217.json
|
|
[
"Giles Richards"
] | 2016-08-28T14:51:59 | null | 2016-08-28T13:59:45 |
Lewis Hamilton fought his way back from the final row of the grid to finish third in a frenetic Belgian Grand Prix won by Nico Rosberg
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fnico-rosberg-lewis-hamilton-f1-belgian-gp.json
|
en
| null |
Lewis Hamilton comes third to keep F1 lead as Nico Rosberg wins Belgian GP
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Nico Rosberg won the Belgian Grand Prix with a pole to flag victory untroubled at the front of the field but in his wake, Lewis Hamilton his Mercedes team-mate, achieved far more than he expected by putting in a superb recovery drive to claim third place and minimise the damage that starting on the back row of the grid had done to his world championship ambitions. Daniel Ricciardo drove a solid and considered race to take second in the Red Bull, having won here in 2014.
Hamilton had led the title race by 19 points going into the race but fitted three new engines at Spa, he took penalty places that saw him begin the race second from last. He has maintained his lead, which now standing at 10 points, and given the circumstances and his own fears that the hot temperatures would mitigate against his ability to come through the field – he will be pleased with his afternoon’s work, especially given that he now has a stock of power units for the rest of the season.
Nico Rosberg wins Belgian GP as Lewis Hamilton comes third to keep F1 lead Read more
It is Rosberg’s first win at the track, with two second places in the last two years being his previous best and his sixth win of the season, the first since the European Grand Prix in Baku, ending the run of four victories that had enabled Hamilton to turn the German’s 43-point advantage into that 19-point deficit before this race.
The German driver put in exactly what was needed with aplomb, he was under pressure since he knew he had to win to claw back points from Hamilton and that such an opportunity may not occur again. Victory was required and he delivered, working his tyres well, albeit with no real opposition. He may have hoped for more in terms of regaining points in the title fight but a failure to win would have been more damaging. Hamilton, in turn was favoured by events including a safety car and the race being red-flagged but was also controlled and skilful in passing and staying out of trouble.
Force India enjoyed another great weekend at Spa with Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Pérez in fourth and fifth respectively. Fernando Alonso, who had taken three new power units for his McLaren over the weekend, incurring a 60-place grid penalty and who had started from the back of the grid, finished in seventh place after a great drive but his team-mate Jenson Button retired with a mechanical problem after just one lap, having been hit from behind by the Manor of Pascal Wehrlein at turn six. The Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were in sixth and ninth with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa rounding out the top 10 in eighth and tenth.
Hamilton had started from the last row with a 55-place penalty for the new engines this weekend, which was compounded to an even greater level of meaninglessness with a further five places deducted when the team broke a seal on the car under parc ferme conditions – in order to be able to change the gearbox at the next round in Monza.
The engine penalties incurred have already cost him once this season, with mechanical failures forcing recovery drives when he started 22nd in China and fought back to seventh and managed second from 10th in Russia. But this comeback ranks easily alongside his previous best efforts when he took his McLaren from 24th on the grid to eighth in Barcelona – that without the advantage his current Mercedes enjoys – and after a fire during qualifying at Hungary in 2014 was followed by a brave, considered and determined drive to claim third place.
Rosberg had leapt into the lead from what was a messy start behind him that saw the two Ferrraris take damage from one another after Max Verstappen went up the inside on the first corner. Vettel spun and the Dutch driver also suffered in the incident and he and Raikonnen were forced to pit. Their drama was swiftly overshadowed however, when Carlos Sainz’s Toro Rosso suffered a huge blowout on lap two, which brought out the virtual safety car. At which point Hamilton had made a superb start to make it to 13th from 21st on the grid – one which was bettered by Alonso, who had started at the back and had moved up to 11th.
When racing resumed it was short-lived, after Kevin Magnussen in the Renault suffered a huge, high-speed accident going almost straight into the barriers at the top of Eau Rouge. The driver emerged with only a left ankle injury but it caused the safety car to be deployed, with considerable damage to the tyre wall, prompting a round of pit stops for the drivers on the super-soft tyres. Hamilton, however, on the medium rubber and his team-mate, on the soft, stayed out – helping promote the British driver to fifth, a series of circumstances that had worked out perfectly in his attempt to make the places back.
The damage to the tyre wall proved extensive and after four laps behind the safety car the race was red-flagged. The cars retuned to the pit lane where Hamilton took advantage of the free stop to switch to the soft compound tyre and Rosberg to the medium. An 18-minute delay ensued before the green flags were back on display with Rosberg leading Red Bull’s Ricciardo and Force India’s Hulkenberg and Alonso behind them.
Hamilton was on a charge however and moved up into fourth, passing Alonso on the Kemmel Straight a lap later. His gap to the leader was 5.6 seconds but he was losing time behind Hulkenberg – a further two down in the next two laps. On lap 18 he passed the German, again on the Kemmel Straight, putting him into the podium places.
The British driver then pitted on lap 22, earlier than he was hoping, to take fresh soft tyres and despite losing some time in the stop, exited in clean air. Rosberg, in turn, pitted on lap 26 to take another set of mediums, after which he was 10 seconds clear but at which point Hamilton was only 2.2 seconds off Ricciardo, who had lost time staying out on dying rubber.
Rosberg was clear and untroubled out front when Hamilton pitted for the second and final time on lap 32, passing Hulkenberg again with Ricciardo’s second place the target. He had fitted the medium tyres, the team happy with the times Rosberg was setting on the same rubber, having worked his way through the softs at a faster rate than was anticipated, given his practice time had been committed to long runs rather than qualifying. But time and pace were beyond Hamilton and he settled for third. Offered it on Friday morning, one suspects he would have snapped it up.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/28/nico-rosberg-lewis-hamilton-f1-belgian-gp
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8d2c067e887f2e1f8de6c0efa46be8320a6687b55ae4d8400189f311083c6bab.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-28T18:49:48 | null | 2016-08-28T18:30:40 |
Letters: We should ask if the UK Freedom of Information Act is fit for purpose, given that its numerous exemptions can encourage public authorities to reject requests for information
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fuk-lack-of-transparency-over-plane-crash-that-killed-dag-hammarskjold.json
|
en
| null |
UK’s lack of transparency over plane crash that killed Dag Hammarskjöld
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Julian Borger’s analysis of the UK government’s response to a UN request for documents relating to the 1961 crash that killed the second UN secretary general is welcome (Dag Hammarskjöld: Ban Ki-moon seeks to appoint investigator for fatal crash, theguardian.com, 25 August). Was it Hilary Benn’s pertinent parliamentary question to the foreign secretary that finally prompted a response after seven months? This delay begs the question whether the FCO should be charged with coordinating searches of government records, given its own abysmal record-keeping history. Guardian readers may remember that its concealment of tens of thousands of records came to light five years ago only after the court success of veterans of the Kenyan struggle for independence.
The FCO now admits it holds several hundred thousand documents contrary to UK public records legislation. Despite its claimed commitment to full transparency, its history does not inspire confidence. Professor Tony Badger, its independent reviewer charged to oversee the release of hitherto hidden records, recognises that this “newfound transparency” will not easily sway doubters. We should ask if the UK Freedom of Information Act is fit for purpose, given that its numerous exemptions can encourage public authorities to reject requests for information.
The UN legal counsel asked at least twice for confirmation that the “search across all relevant UK departments” had included the intelligence and security agencies. That question remains unanswered. In April this year, when Vice News tackled the FCO on this, it was told, “it is the longstanding policy of successive British governments not to comment on intelligence matters”. Can the UN’s straightforward query really be considered counter to our national security?
Dr Mandy Banton
Senior research fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
• The US and British responses to the efforts by the United Nations to further explore the circumstances of the plane crash at Ndola should be an embarrassment to all citizens in these countries (and elsewhere), who have an interest in seeking clarification of what happened. The reports so far already present sufficient evidence that there is more to it than what the official government responses are willing to admit.
This form of denial through non-compliance with legitimate demands for access to information is tantamount to obstruction and sabotages the sincere efforts to bring closure to one of the unsolved cases involving western states and their security operations. Such an arrogant attitude further dents the image of those who claim to be among civilised nations then and now.
Henning Melber
Senior adviser/director emeritus, The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
• Julian Borger’s report shows clearly that the responses from the UK and US governments to the UN’s undersecretary general for legal affairs’ request for added transparency was underwhelming to the point of disrespect. When asked to explain the presence of US Air Force Dakotas at Ndola airport at the time of Hammarskjöld’s intended arrival, the US claims “the USAF has not found any documents or information regarding the presence of any US Air Force aircraft there”, despite copious evidence including witness reports by RAF personnel to the contrary. As Ban Ki-moon asked the question of the US government broadly, not just the USAF, Kafka would have relished such absurdity. The UK’s response does not impress either, taking seven months to restate its earlier opaque stance, unable to release retained information without redactions.
Ban Ki-moon describes his pursuit of the truth as a “solemn duty to his illustrious and distinguished predecessor, to the other members of the party accompanying him and to their relatives”. What will his successor do? On behalf of colleagues on every continent, UNA Westminster, which maintains an information service on this issue (www.humanrights2008.org.uk), has asked all candidates if they will agree to pursue the issue with equal courage. I commend Danilo Türk and Dr Lukšić (since withdrawn) for their confirmation but, after a month, I still wait to hear from the others. Does their delay suggest oversight or herald an innate lack of commitment and courage to confront powerful states which when needed was so memorably manifested by Dag Hammarskjöld? I watch my inbox with added interest.
David Wardrop
Chairman, United Nations Association Westminster Branch
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/uk-lack-of-transparency-over-plane-crash-that-killed-dag-hammarskjold
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/43f533b4323b11cfc0b146f1e8c7f4d4ce7be1838f06c3db5b2e7a37879f4854.json
|
|
[
"Reinoud Leenders",
"Julian Borger"
] | 2016-08-29T16:52:15 | null | 2016-08-29T16:05:53 |
It is perverse that agencies intent on helping the most vulnerable in the civil war can throw a lifeline to such a brutal regime
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Funs-4bn-aid-effort-in-syria-is-morally-bankrupt.json
|
en
| null |
UN's $4bn aid effort in Syria is morally bankrupt
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
When confronted with criticism of their failure to address Syria’s humanitarian catastrophe, UN officials routinely blame a lack of resources. As Stephen O’Brien, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, put it, the UN system is broke, not broken.
Yet UN aid agencies, since stepping up operations in Syria in 2012, have handed lucrative procurement contracts to regime cronies who are known to have bankrolled the very repression and brutality that helped cause the crisis in the first place.
UN pays tens of millions to Assad regime under Syria aid programme Read more
The revelation is as perverse as it is unsurprising, and points to the moral bankruptcy of the UN’s $4bn (£3bn) Syria aid effort to date. It is perverse that UN agencies, which are mandated to reach out to the most vulnerable in Syria’s vicious and protracted civil war, are throwing a lifeline to a regime that has no qualms about burning the entire country just to stay in power.
The UN may not be legally bound to the sanctions imposed on Syrian regime incumbents by the EU or US; it may even argue that such unilateral sanctions are illegal. Yet when several Syrian suppliers of humanitarian goods and services are blacklisted for “aiding the regime’s repression” or for “being close to key figures of the Syrian regime”, UN procurement officials must have known whom they were dealing with. Genuine Syrian businessmen could have told them that some of the UN’s key business partners were, in fact, the regime.
Since UN agencies negotiated the modalities of their operations run from Damascus in 2012, the Syrian regime’s aggressive assertions of state sovereignty have locked UN aid agencies into a disturbingly submissive role.
UN officials argue that given the complex and often dangerous context in which they are expected to provide aid, some concessions and accommodation of the government’s demands are inevitable.
How Assad regime controls UN aid intended for Syria's children Read more
Yet organisations – including the Syria Campaign and Syrian civilians on the receiving end of the regime’s brutality – have rightly noted that the UN’s alleged pragmatism has given way to a troubling proximity to the regime. They plausibly claim this partly explains why the vast majority of UN aid fails to reach opposition or rebel-held areas.
The list of UN agencies in Syria that are under full regime control is lengthy, and growing. The regime heavily intervened in the UN’s needs assessments, even redacting UN documents prepared for donor fundraising.
The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs routinely understated the number of areas – and people – besieged by regime forces. The World Health Organisation failed to detect early signs of the threat of polio and other contagious diseases in rebel-held areas as it relies on the regime’s laboratories.
Many UN agencies in Damascus are staffed by former Syrian ministry officials: sympathetic to the regime, close friends of Syria’s first lady, and direct relatives of the very regime incumbents imposing a range of draconian measures that continue to stymie UN aid.
Some independent aid workers I interviewed diagnosed the UN’s dealings with the regime as a clear-cut case of “Stockholm syndrome”.
The UN’s failings in Syria are systemic. A few brave and principled UN aid workers who were kicked out by the regime for refusing to comply with illegal restrictions on humanitarian access received no support from their headquarters.
Syria's civil war: five years of Guardian reporting Read more
Internal evaluations of the UN agencies’ performance in Syria do not include a basic audit of resources. But as long as donor governments wish to hide the UN aid fiasco from their taxpaying citizens the problem will refuse to go away.
One small but necessary step would be to create a UN internal review panel to scrutinise the conduct of humanitarian agencies in Syria. Procurement decisions should get the biggest spotlight because they most clearly indicate the UN’s surrender to regime demands and interests, while other shortcomings may be clouded in ambiguity and potentially valid excuses. However, sceptics will say little will come out of such an exercise.
But with a serious investigation in course, UN officials in Damascus may see their leverage with the regime increase. They could credibly argue that their hands are tied if the regime comes up with yet another intolerable demand compromising humanitarian principles.
Reinoud Leenders is reader in international politics and Middle East studies at King’s College London, department of war studies
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2016/aug/29/uns-4bn-aid-effort-in-syria-is-morally-bankrupt
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/103607d95c75edcb2caa98b938b29eb7ebee1c70136e509006da0cd9c8f75eb9.json
|
|
[
"Anna Tims"
] | 2016-08-26T13:29:50 | null | 2016-07-20T06:00:21 |
Thatched houses to lure you out of city living, from Devon to Normandy – take your pick
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Fjul%2F20%2Ffancy-thatch-cottage-homes-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Fancy thatch? Cottage homes - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Home: Harraton, near Modbury, Devon
The house is dwarfed by its land, including an acre of woodland and an orchard, but inside it’s roomier than it looks. Populous parties can be gathered in the large L-shaped living room and catered for on the Aga in a kitchen with exposed stone walls and space for family dining. A stone barn has been fitted out as a self-contained annexe and supplies an extra bedroom, which is as well for you have to blunder past the occupant of the second bedroom to reach the third in the main house. Asking price: £435,000. Marchand Petit , 01548 831 163
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2016/jul/20/fancy-thatch-cottage-homes-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-07-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/43877eb86a531060ac2deb337f8b11ab62192b79464d407bf018bff7531aad80.json
|
|
[
"Michael Slezak"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:32 | null | 2016-08-24T03:34:39 |
Investors say countries that move first will attract investments and call for regulators to force disclosure of climate-related risks
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Finvestors-controlling-13tn-call-on-g20-leaders-to-ratify-paris-climate-agreement.json
|
en
| null |
Investors controlling $13tn call on G20 leaders to ratify Paris climate agreement
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A group of 130 institutions that control US$13tn of investments have called on G20 nations to ratify the Paris agreement this year and accelerate investment in clean energy and forced disclosure of climate-related financial risk.
Countries that ratified the Paris agreement early would benefit from better policy certainty and would attract investment in low-carbon technology, the signatories said in a letter before the G20 heads of government meeting in September.
They called for strong carbon pricing to be implemented, as well as regulations that encouraged energy efficiency and renewable energy. Plans for how to phase out fossil fuels also needed to be developed, they said.
China to shut churches in G20 host city on safety grounds – reports Read more
Financial regulators needed to force companies to disclose how climate change, and climate-related policies, would impact their bottom line, the group said.
“So investors are asking companies: tell us what the implementation of the Paris agreement means for your business so that we can price that risk and invest accordingly,” said Emma Herd, the chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) – one of the six organisations that represent the 130 investors on the letter.
Herd said that required not only mandatory reporting but also for that reporting to be standardised so that investors can compare between companies and between industries.
The signatories of the letter wrote: “The Paris agreement on climate change provides a clear signal to investors that the transition to the low-carbon, clean energy economy is inevitable and already under way.
“Governments have a responsibility to work with the private sector to ensure that this transition happens fast enough to catalyse the significant investment required to achieve the Paris agreement’s goals.”
The letter called on G20 countries to begin preparing to strengthen their emissions targets, as was required by Paris. It also called for them to double investment in clean energy by 2020, as the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, urged in January.
The G20 leaders summit will take place in China on 4 to 5 September. Under China’s leadership, this year’s G20 has had a strong focus on climate-related issues, establishing a green finance study group.
“The nations that form the G20 are highly influential in achieving the full coming into force of the Paris agreement,” Herd said. “So if the G20 nations did actually all ratify Paris, then it would go a long way, if not get it across the line, of full implementation.”
The investor group called for Germany, which takes over the G20 leadership next year, to continue and strengthen the focus on climate change.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/24/investors-controlling-13tn-call-on-g20-leaders-to-ratify-paris-climate-agreement
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/858398f25ec45b8c470567dfa39c9f8da9f2ae0fff56cf60725eca3166d1957b.json
|
|
[
"Anna Tims"
] | 2016-08-26T13:28:36 | null | 2016-08-10T06:00:04 |
Company was liable for reimbursing the buyer in Germany to whom I sold an antique cup and saucer, but it made me pay
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F10%2Febay-flouted-own-refund-policy-when-parcel-did-not-arrive.json
|
en
| null |
Ebay flouted its own refund policy when parcel didn't arrive
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
I sold an antique cup and saucer for £165 through eBay. The buyer lived in Germany and so, through my eBay account, I had pre-arranged to use the company’s international shipping facility.
My buyer paid eBay directly to have their item delivered from the UK shipping centre. All I had to do was send it to eBay’s collection centre for international deliveries in Derbyshire. I have confirmation that it was received there.
Ebay’s own terms and conditions make it clear that once an item has reached this collection centre a seller is no longer liable to refund the buyer if it is lost or damaged.
Nonetheless, I received an email from eBay informing me that “a case” had been opened against me as the buyer had still not received their parcel.
I was given a link to click on to provide information. However, this was all in German, therefore I could not understand a word. I contacted eBay’s customer service and was told that any reimbursement was eBay’s responsibility, so I might as well ignore the email.
Next, I was contacted by eBay in Germany wanting proof that the parcel had not reached the buyer. This was obviously something I had no knowledge or control over, but I was subsequently informed that eBay would be reimbursing the buyer and claiming the sum from my account as I could not prove that the buyer had not received the parcel.
In a number of phone calls to eBay customer services, staff agreed that I was not responsible for the refund but that, since it was a decision by eBay Germany, there was nothing they could do. By then my PayPal account had been debited.
I feel that my only course of action now is to take eBay to a small claims court, but all the time involved with this is costing me a small fortune. EW Blakeney, Gloucestershire
Ebay blames a “straightforward process mistake”, although not so straightforward that the company was able work out what to do about it before The Observer got in touch.
The same day that I contacted the press office it authorised a refund, but the wait is not yet over. Although eBay can instantly debit PayPal accounts when it suits the company, it requires up to seven days to return the money. Funny that!
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/10/ebay-flouted-own-refund-policy-when-parcel-did-not-arrive
|
en
| 2016-08-10T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f13fb90bdf770a0adfc0be77fef1c03c812a89efd8ff3a66f452aa845a5543d1.json
|
|
[
"Miriam Cosic"
] | 2016-08-31T02:55:26 | null | 2016-08-30T22:52:31 |
The tech giant’s head of diversity on staying politically neutral, tackling Twitter’s diversity issues and why he’s the middle-aged white guy for the job
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsustainable-business%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fjeffrey-siminoff-twitter-inclusion-diversity.json
|
en
| null |
Jeffrey Siminoff: 'Twitter is the place where inclusion lives'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Unconscious bias towards “people like us” is something we’re all guilty of. We feel more comfortable among those whose race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, accent, even sense of humour, mirror our own. It explains why, with the best intentions in the world, even governments and companies aware of inclusion have, for example, far fewer women than men in management.
This is something Jeffrey Siminoff, the vice-president for inclusion and diversity at Twitter, is trying to change – within his company and on the company’s platform in a sort of symbiosis.
Twitter has 3,860 employees worldwide and 313m active users a month, according to its corporate website. “Twitter is the place where inclusion lives,” Siminoff says, with a rhythmic familiarity that suggests he’s said it once or twice before. “What I mean by that is a democratisation of voices. We have a platform where people come together with no barriers to entry, to feel included and to feel a sense of belonging. The platform is designed to form communities.
Steve Wozniak: The status quo doesn't have to exist. We can come up with solutions Read more
“If that’s what’s inherent in the business, it’s imperative for this company to live up to the promise of inclusion in its own workplace, too. When those two things meet and fuse, when your employees are marching lockstep with the mission of the platform itself, you create something rich.”
He’s not talking about positive discrimination, which is a form of discrimination in itself. “We don’t favour one group over another,” he says. “People spend a lot of time at work and we’re focused on creating an environment where people thrive, not despite their differences but because of their differences.”
At Twitter, this means thinking carefully about who is approached to join the company or to be promoted. “It’s one thing to mandate a specific result,” he says of the positive discrimination his company doesn’t practice, “it’s another thing to mandate a diverse pool of candidates.”
The global program Twitter is implementing is a form of mindfulness training for all employees: teaching them to reflect on the unconscious stereotypes we all have because of the way we’ve been brought up, or because of external influences such as culture and media. The idea is to run a “system check” in real time against those inborn tribal biases when creating and then surveying the pool of applicants, as well as when making an appointment.
It’s ironic that when Siminoff was appointed to the diversity role, critics in the media were ferocious about a middle-aged white male getting the job. But he has long been intensely and personally aware of the issues. When he was younger, he struggled with his identity as a gay man. As an employment lawyer at Morgan Stanley, he saw many cases of discrimination on all sorts of grounds, and jumped at the chance to organise an LGBTIQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning] resource within the company as an extracurricular role.
“It was a transformative experience,” he says. “I felt much more present, much more connected and much more alive in my work.” When he was asked to step out of his lawyer role to lead the company’s diversity program, he embraced it, he says. He later took those skills to Apple and then to Twitter, where his job includes helping the platform enable equality and diversity.
The Grattan Institute is wrong. We need more science students, not fewer Read more
In Australia that has meant offering advice to @IndigenousX, for example, the vehicle for a variety of Indigenous voices that change daily. Similarly partnerships with business clients have emphasised equality and inclusion. For instance, Twitter worked with ANZ to create a rainbow-coloured “hashflag” to accompany the company’s tweets supporting Mardi Gras and LGBTI rights in general.
Yet Siminoff insists the platform itself remains politically neutral. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are active on it, for example, and, given the extent of trolling of women, particularly women in tech, it’s clear he’s not fudging when he says the company doesn’t practise censorship. Some might say it doesn’t practise enough of it.
What’s more, the most powerful hashtags often arise organically. He uses the hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, as an example: it has spread from the US to the UK and Australia, among other countries, and has created a powerful field of solidarity, despite the backlash hashtags such as All, or White, Lives Matter.
His formula for his own job could be a formula for how he’d like users to approach Twitter, too. “What’s critical for success in a role like this is an ability to listen and to learn, assume [something] because your own life experiences have walked you down a certain road and not presume that your good intentions are necessarily going to carry the day.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/31/jeffrey-siminoff-twitter-inclusion-diversity
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/958d89f2156308a5a371b5b9f6e47e96fa0d9e9cfd30385e86953efc3358d155.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-29T16:50:02 | null | 2016-04-26T21:00:11 |
Public appeal led to arrest of Mehdi Midani, who targeted four women in a day during a string of offences
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Fapr%2F26%2Fserial-south-london-sex-attacker-convicted-of-seven-assaults-on-women.json
|
en
| null |
Man convicted of series of sex attacks in south London
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A man has been convicted of carrying out a string of sexual assaults on women in south London over 10 days, including the targeting of four women in just 24 hours.
Mehdi Midani, of no fixed abode, was found guilty of six counts and admitted a seventh at Inner London crown court on Tuesday, the Metropolitan police said. The 28-year-old was also found guilty of common assault.
The investigating officer, DC Tony Carr, from the Met’s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command, said: “Midani caused enormous fear and distress to the local community as he carried out his spate of attacks, with four recorded in just one day.”
As the number of incidents increased, officers launched a public appeal for help and information. Police stepped up patrols in the area and public safety advice was issued, encouraging women to be vigilant and take care in the area.
The appeal resulted in information that led to Midani’s arrest on 2 November in the Brixton Hill area. He was subsequently charged.
Carr said: “A public appeal was crucial to our investigation and led to information being provided that quickly led to Midani’s arrest. I would like to thank the local community for their support and help during our inquiry and hope they are reassured by the news that Midani has now been convicted and faces imprisonment.”
Three other men, aged 30, 34 and 32, were also arrested as part of the investigation but were later released, with no action taken against them.
Midani will be sentenced on 26 May.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/26/serial-south-london-sex-attacker-convicted-of-seven-assaults-on-women
|
en
| 2016-04-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/748a9a5b0ee8d575890b5fda5dceed46f61c299d45d8bd51705b12b0dd8d1266.json
|
|
[
"Simon Jenkins"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:49 | null | 2016-08-26T09:31:02 |
Western arms and money have prolonged and intensified this civil war. Our only duties are to stop taking sides, and to help those fleeing the conflict
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsyria-civil-war-western-meddling.json
|
en
| null |
Outside meddling has unleashed horror in Syria. We must step back
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Today’s news that the American secretary of state, John Kerry, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, are in Geneva to discuss ending the war in Syria should raise everyone’s spirits. Why does it not do so?
The answer is that these and other outside powers have tried this often before and failed. They have failed in large part because each is also helping the war to continue by aiding their chosen participants. So a quarter of a million Syrians have died, millions been displaced and a relic of world civilisation has been destroyed. The reality is that, ever since America first invaded the Middle East in 2003, the outside world’s policy towards Syria has been a textbook example of diplomatic failure.
In 2011, the intelligence community (and its media cheerleaders) predicted Assad would go the way of other Arab spring dictators. He would fall and the west could then nurture Syria into a new dawn of western-style democracy. When this failed to occur, the hawks (including Britain’s David Cameron) advocated that the west invade and topple him, installing a government of “our” Syrians, at peace with each other and the world.
The moral of Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Libya is that the world rarely behaves as western punditry requires. Other nations have ways – and wars – of their own. The Syrian horror began with a sectarian insurgency of Syria’s own peculiar making. When it became evident that Assad was not going to fall, the west aided his foes with money, weapons and, above all, hope. They were soon joined by Isis, expanding out of the Sunni safe havens ceded them by the ham-fisted American/British intervention in Iraq. With Russia and Hezbollah drawn into backing Assad, the recipe for a perfect storm was in place. So it has been ever since.
Reality in this part of the world is that order and power seem invariably to trump “western-style” democracy. The west’s support for Assad’s enemies, like its toppling of Saddam and Gaddafi, aided the cause not of democracy but of chaos. It displayed the arrogance of empire without its true commitment. It dabbled, disregarding the old maxim, better a thousand years of tyranny than one day of anarchy.
The outside world has two simple duties towards the civil wars of others. One is not to take sides, to “give war a chance” to resolve internal conflict, and not fuel its terrors with weapons, bombs or hope of reinforcement. The other is to aid those fleeing the horrors of war when they throw themselves on the mercy of a wider humanity.
These duties we can perform – but fail to do so. They are unlikely to be on the agenda in Geneva.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/26/syria-civil-war-western-meddling
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/22655be65c0ba331b61430cde12dff4d93782c7636380a8be671bee4921db9e9.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:29:21 | null | 2016-07-23T06:00:32 |
Surely he can see there’s more to summer than eating poorly cooked food outdoors
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fblog%2F2016%2Fjul%2F23%2Fdissuade-bbq-mad-husband.json
|
en
| null |
How can I dissuade my BBQ-mad husband?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.
This week’s question:
My BBQ-mad husband loves smoking out the garden every weekend, and now wants to spend £600 on a charcoal model. I hate BBQs – carting everything outside, hours waiting for over/under-cooked food. Am I alone in this? How can I make him see sense?
Do you have a problem readers could solve? Email your suggestions to money@theguardian.com or write to us at Money, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/jul/23/dissuade-bbq-mad-husband
|
en
| 2016-07-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/534a30f539d826aa680e67f0ae65cc13fa434f33790de8f05055fffcd6b93d66.json
|
|
[
"Patrick Collinson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:22 | null | 2016-06-04T06:00:02 |
The plastic fivers don’t burn or tear easily, but you can fold them and withdraw them as usual from ATMs. Just don’t iron them by mistake
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Fjun%2F04%2Fnew-five-pound-note-plastic-fiver.json
|
en
| null |
All you need to know about the new £5 note
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Bank of England has cooked them in ovens, drowned them in red wine, stuck them in the microwave and run them through a 90C washing machine cycle with Persil washing power. It reckons the new £5 plastic notes – which go into circulation on 13 September – will be warmly welcomed by the British public. It also believes there are a lot of myths floating around about our new polymer-based money. So what are the facts and falsehoods about our new fivers?
They stick together
They can – meaning shoppers could possibly hand over two at once. In its official Q&A on the notes, the Bank admits that “brand new polymer notes can sometimes stick together, but this effect is short-lived once in use”. Oddly, the notes are not just sticky, but also slippery compared with existing notes, which are made of cotton-based paper. The Bank says they “can feel slippery when new, although this tends to decline over time once the notes are in circulation”. It adds that polymer notes (it prefers not to use the word “plastic”) will have areas of raised print that will give them a “tactile quality”.
They begin to melt at 120C
A forgotten note left in a pocket and ironed will distort and shrink in size. The Bank of England reckons that polymer notes have better durability and resistance than paper notes in all areas except the ironing test. “We are aware that polymer banknotes begin to shrink and melt at temperatures above 120C, so they can be damaged by an iron,” it said in 2013 following early testing of the notes.
In Canada, which introduced polymer banknotes in late 2011, Mona Billard from Ontario took $800 worth of the notes back to the bank after her son stashed them in a tin can and hid it near a heater. When he retrieved them the next day, they had shrivelled and melted. And according to another Canadian, Trina Moniz of Ontario, the heat from a lamp on her desk warped and melted $1,200 worth of notes.
But are these melting loonies (that’s the name Canadians give their currency) an urban myth? The Bank of Canada said its notes are designed to take temperatures of up to 140C and that far fewer are being returned compared with the former paper-based notes.
Burning through money will, literally, be more difficult
Sticking a match under a note and seeing it going up in flames may become a thing of the past. The new notes are combustible, but only ignite in high heat conditions.
They are difficult to tear
Tearing them will test the strength of musclemen who liked to rip the telephone directory in half (what do they use now?). Reporters at the Bank’s launch event on Thursday were given the chance to rip, scrunch and tear the notes, but had little success. However, newspaper reporters are not known for having physiques like Charles Atlas. What is evident is that the new notes are far more durable than existing fivers, few of which ever see their own fifth birthday.
But if they suffer a small nick, they then tear easily
“Although the initial tear resistance of polymer banknotes is high, once they have a nick they can tear easily,” says the Bank.
You can’t fold them
This is nonsense. They may be plastic, but they are easily foldable in the quantities most people will use. What they do have is “bounce-backability” when you take them out of a wallet.
They won’t work in vending machines and ATMs can’t dispense them
More nonsense. The Bank has worked closely with the ATM and vending industries; the majority of ATMs will be able to dispense the new fivers, although machines have had to be recalibrated, with some in the industry complaining it has cost £236m to implement.
They are nice and clean
The image of the Queen of England has been subjected to test after test by the Bank. When submerged in red wine, her majesty’s face on the current paper notes goes a puce colour, but stays fresh on polymer, and can just be wiped clean. “The impermeable and non-fibrous nature of polymer means it repels dirt and moisture,” says the Bank.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The new banknotes are printed on polymer, a thin flexible plastic film, which is seen as more durable and more secure. Photograph: Bank of England
They last about five years
More than 30 countries already use polymer notes (Australia has been using them for more than 20 years) and all the evidence shows they last significantly longer. The Bank is conservatively assuming that polymer notes will last at least 2.5 times longer than the paper ones they are replacing.
Plastic notes fade faster than paper notes
Not true. The ink on polymer is as long-lasting as that on cotton-based paper. “The ink on polymer banknotes will eventually wear towards the end of their usable life, whereas paper banknotes become limper and heavily soiled,” says the Bank.
If you live in Northern Ireland, you’re on old money
The new plastic notes are being issued by the Bank of England. Note issuers in Scotland – such as Clydesdale Bank – won’t follow up with mass circulation polymer notes until later this year. And there are no published plans by note issuers in Northern Ireland to switch to polymer, but the new notes will be accepted there.
They are 15% smaller than the current £5 note
The new notes will be smaller, but the practice of note size increasing (tenners bigger than fivers, etc) will be maintained. The first £5 note, issued in 1793, was an extraordinary size – 195cm x 120cm – as tall as a man and twice as wide. The 1945-57 issue of £5 notes were 21.1cm x 13.3cm – nearly double the size of the new plastic fivers. Mind you, £5 in 1945 was worth £200 today.
The Bank says our notes are large compared with international counterparts, making the largest denomination notes harder to fit into cash-handling technology and “less convenient for everyday use”. Smaller notes will also reduce printing and storage costs.
But English notes will still be bigger than notes issued by Johnny Foreigner
It may please Brexiters that English notes, although shrinking, will remain slightly larger than euro notes. But they will be fatter and shorter than US dollars.
The old £5 notes will become collectables
Possibly. There are 329m £5 notes in circulation in the UK. However, they are less common than the most frequently used note, now the £20 note. There are more than 2bn of them in our wallets and purses. The old £1 notes, withdrawn in 1988, haven’t exactly earned collectors a fortune; one seller is currently asking £6.99 for five of them on eBay and has no bidders.
The existing £5 notes will not be legal tender, so will become worthless
Yes and no. The paper £5 notes will probably disappear from circulation rapidly later this year, and after May 2017 will no longer be legal tender. But all withdrawn Bank of England notes remain payable at face value for all time.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/04/new-five-pound-note-plastic-fiver
|
en
| 2016-06-04T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/374265c06d1f7a88dab1de6e7009c5b63b75d9428800d5a6c066aa47dd3396d8.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-30T12:52:45 | null | 2016-08-30T09:24:10 |
The Arsenal midfielder was set to leave the Emirates Stadium on a loan deal
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fjack-wilshere-set-to-leave-arsenal-on-loan-before-end-of-transfer-window.json
|
en
| null |
Jack Wilshere set to leave Arsenal on loan before end of transfer window
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Jack Wilshere is set to leave Arsenal on a loan deal. The 24-year-old has been limited to two substitute appearances this season and it is believed a temporary move has been mutually agreed between the England midfielder and club.
Joe Hart agrees deal to join Torino on loan from Manchester City Read more
It is unclear where the 34-cap Wilshere, who missed out on Sam Allardyce’s first England squad, may head but he is sure to have plenty of options as the transfer window comes to a close.
Wilshere, whose career has been plagued by injuries, broke a fibula during pre-season training in August last year. He was expected to be out for a month but did not play again until 24 April.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/30/jack-wilshere-set-to-leave-arsenal-on-loan-before-end-of-transfer-window
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d8dc463909642e080ce93e87c0919014e2735e46c0a7b0509e8960a1ead19dad.json
|
|
[
"Source",
"Bbc Radio Live"
] | 2016-08-26T13:21:51 | null | 2016-08-23T13:06:16 |
Laura Trott says criticism of Team GB’s Olympic cycling success is ‘annoying and frustrating’, as rival teams publicly question the medal haul
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Flaura-trott-responds-to-criticism-of-british-olympic-cycling-success-audio.json
|
en
| null |
Laura Trott responds to criticism of British Olympic cycling success - audio
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Laura Trott says criticism of Team GB’s Olympic cycling success is ‘annoying and frustrating’, as rival teams publicly question the medal haul. Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday, Trott says the British team cycling programme is geared towards the Olympics rather than the World Championships
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2016/aug/23/laura-trott-responds-to-criticism-of-british-olympic-cycling-success-audio
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/dcab03cf5793ceced7de017cc4fbd3585c0902216e1e51d525e9898299844133.json
|
|
[
"Ed Aarons",
"Fabrizio Romano"
] | 2016-08-31T10:53:02 | null | 2016-08-31T08:20:00 |
The Algeria striker has agreed a deal with the Premier League champions for a club record fee and is due in England on Wednesday for a medical
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fislam-slimani-leicester-city-sporting-lisbon-club-record.json
|
en
| null |
Islam Slimani set for £30m move to Leicester City from Sporting Lisbon
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Leicester have agreed a club record fee of €35m (£30m) with Sporting Lisbon for Islam Slimani and the Algeria striker is due to fly to England on Wednesday to complete a medical.
Transfer deadline day news: Leicester agree Slimani deal, Brahimi to Everton – live! Read more
Negotiations appeared to have reached an impasse when the Portuguese side insisted they would not sell their top scorer of last season for less than €40m. However, with Claudio Ranieri keen to add to his attacking options in readiness for their debut season in the Champions League, a compromise was reached on Tuesday night.
Slimani, who scored 27 times in the Portuguese league last season as Sporting finished runners-up to Benfica, will now leave Algeria’s training camp as they prepare for their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Lesotho to sign for the Premier League champions.
West Bromwich Albion had a bid rejected in the past week, although it is understood that the Algiers-born player favoured a move to the King Power Stadium to link up with his international team-mate Riyad Mahrez.
Slimani, who moved to Portugal in 2013 from the Algerian side CR Belouizdad, scored twice for his country at the 2014 World Cup. Having already added the Nigeria forward Ahmed Musa, Leicester have been in the market for another striker for some time and also inquired about the availability of the Argentinian Guido Carrillo of Monaco.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/31/islam-slimani-leicester-city-sporting-lisbon-club-record
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/586d3af59c64ddaa5c81a46d645f48129ccba767ec33a2a8eb3d13fab6dfe733.json
|
|
[
"Source",
"Lajee Center"
] | 2016-08-26T13:12:59 | null | 2016-08-24T12:40:20 |
Children at the Lajee Center in Bethlehem thank fans of Celtic Football Club for their recent donations to charities based in Palestine
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fpalestinian-refugees-chant-thank-you-to-celtic-fans-for-donations-video.json
|
en
| null |
Palestinian refugees chant thank you to Celtic fans for donations - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
In a video filmed by the Lajee Center, children in Bethlehem thank fans of Celtic Football Club for their recent donations to charities based in Palestine. Celtic supporters have raised more than £130,000 for charities in the region in an attempt to match an impending Uefa fine for displaying Palestinian flags at a Champions League match against an Israeli team. The centre, located in the Aida refugee camp, supports displaced young people
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/24/palestinian-refugees-chant-thank-you-to-celtic-fans-for-donations-video
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f87e859c10b2c2381496925912d533116a23e09146c60b9d3368b7f6e40b173d.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-26T13:22:42 | null | 2016-08-24T18:01:51 |
Letters: Unlike Zola Budd, my wife continues to live in Britain; unlike the owners of the Daily Mail, she pays full British taxes
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fzola-budd-my-wife-and-1984s-doublethink.json
|
en
| null |
Zola Budd, my wife and 1984’s doublethink
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Your piece on Zola Budd, who in 1984 was fast-tracked to British citizenship in a matter of weeks at the behest of the Daily Mail, having never set foot in Britain (Zola Budd passport caused rift in Thatcher’s top team, 24 August), reminds me that at the same time my wife, who is Canadian, was applying for British citizenship. By this date she had already lived in and paid taxes in Britain for 10 years and we had started a family. She was told she would have to wait a year for the application to be determined. When she learned of Budd’s fast-tracking, she tore up her application in disgust.
Since then the cost of applying for British citizenship has risen to almost £1,300, with a requirement that applicants must pass a test including questions such how many seats are there in the House of Lords (“too many” is apparently not the correct answer). Unlike Zola Budd, my wife continues to live in Britain; unlike the owners of the Daily Mail, she pays full British taxes.
She has never reapplied for UK citizenship and remains a proud and egalitarian Canadian.
David Cooper
Newbury, Berkshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/24/zola-budd-my-wife-and-1984s-doublethink
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/34ac010f48b8da23ca9124afd33dd584edd33706a4cfad11db0dd5cda774072b.json
|
|
[
"Photograph",
"Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Lucy Dalbiac Luard Fund Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund For Photography Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Lee M. Friedman Fund Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Illustration",
"Lent The Trustee Of The Lowell Institute",
"William A. Lowell Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Gift Of Miss Ellen T. Bullard Museum Of Fine Arts",
"Francis Welch Fund"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:23 | null | 2016-08-25T09:00:07 |
Architectural ruins and lost cities have fascinated artists throughout the centuries. A new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, When Cities Fall, showcases impressions of crumbling heritage both imagined and real
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcities%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Ffallen-cities-artists-captured-ruins-kabul-rome-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Fallen cities: how artists have captured ruins, from Kabul to Rome - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Architectural ruins and lost cities have fascinated artists throughout the centuries. A new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, When Cities Fall, showcases impressions of crumbling heritage both imagined and real
|
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2016/aug/25/fallen-cities-artists-captured-ruins-kabul-rome-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/72c5aa58bafba44c108ee6a8d692f031518ade42d5396c8fe4670d915471fce0.json
|
|
[
"Staff"
] | 2016-08-30T08:52:23 | null | 2016-08-30T06:52:50 |
One-seater plane disappeared soon after taking off for training exercise, says air force
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fsearch-for-missing-fighter-jet-in-switzerland.json
|
en
| null |
Search for missing fighter jet in Switzerland
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The Swiss military launched a search after a warplane belonging to the country’s air force went missing during a training exercise.
The plane, a one-seater F/A-18C, disappeared near Susten in central Switzerland on Monday afternoon, the Swiss defence ministry said.
The suspected accident site in the mountainous alpine region was difficult to access, with bad weather and darkness hampering the search efforts, it said.
Swiss air force Commander Aldo Schellenberg, when asked about the survival chances of the pilot, said: “We hope and pray.”
The aircraft took off from the air base at Meiringen at 3pm as the second plane in a training exercise.
Two planes crash at Swiss airshow Read more
Radio contact with the base was lost soon afterwards and the plane was logged as missing.
A search mission was launched with helicopters but later abandoned due to bad weather. Two ground-based search teams were looking for the pilot and the aircraft while an investigation got under way.
The Swiss air force has lost two other F/A 18 jets in the last three years. A pilot was injured when an aircraft crashed in October 2015 in south-east France, while another F/A 18 crashed in 2013, killing the pilot and a passenger.
Earlier this year a Swiss F-5E air demonstration fighter jet clipped another plane and crashed into a pond in the northern Netherlands ahead of an air show. The pilot ejected safely.
With Reuters
|
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/30/search-for-missing-fighter-jet-in-switzerland
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/eb13ea2f13c41667e70c53fb943326787b7343f2b692c02899591407658038b4.json
|
|
[
"Sam White"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:32 | null | 2016-08-22T12:33:15 |
Eidos Montreal’s near-future thriller presents a visually impressive dystopian playground, but a wonky narrative and some shoddy touches tarnish its potential
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Fdeus-ex-mankind-divided-review-eidos-montreal.json
|
en
| null |
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided review - beautiful if half-baked cyberpunk sequel
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Since its debut 16 years ago, Deus Ex’s primary weapon has been choice: where to go, how to get there, who to speak to and how to speak to them are all up to you in a series where almost every scenario has multiple outcomes. After releasing 2011’s Human Revolution – a lavishly depicted near-future thriller – to widespread critical acclaim, developer Eidos Montreal’s follow up, Mankind Divided, picks up the exact same threads that its predecessor left tantalisingly unanswered five years ago.
This is a tall order and its makers clearly recognise it, front-ending the game’s campaign with an almost laughably long 12-minute recap to bring you up to speed on everything Deus Ex. Protagonist Adam Jensen returns – still half-Lagerfeld, half-Motorola Razr – working as a special agent at Interpol two years after the events of Human Revolution. Like many, he’s coming to terms with the devastating aftereffects of The Incident – a cyber-attack that deliberately caused the bio-technologically “augmented” population to turn violent against their will, leaving millions dead. It was a global catalyst, accelerating the divisions between the human and augmented populations, but as thematically charged a setup as this is, Adam and his world can’t help but feel outdated.
Mankind Divided is undeniably beautiful, soaked in the neon golds and vibrant lights that made its predecessor such a striking spectacle, but its weak opening results in a slow start that never quite gains the momentum it needs. When it does finally get going, some shoddy voice work and awful facial animations make for a game that fails to convey the societal and racial messages that its strong writing attempts to.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest After a pre-credits mission in Dubai sets up the game’s central conspiracy, you relocate to Prague. Photograph: The Guardian
Worse yet, it offers very few notable opinions on its focal prejudices, and the best it seems to do to force home its messaging is interrupt you with annoying documentation checks between metro stations. There’s racist graffiti on the walls, slurs get shouted as you walk through the streets, but the overall result is a social commentary that feels, at best, lacking conviction.
After a pre-credits mission in Dubai sets up the game’s central conspiracy, you relocate to Prague; a rich, multifaceted hub full of apartment blocks, a bank, abandoned theatre and underground anti-terrorism facility. Prague never imposes the same visual impact as Human Revolution’s depiction of Hengsha or Detroit, but it is explored and revisited several times in different visual states over the game’s 20-25 hours, and it’s a veritable playground of stuff to do. Between the various metro stations that transport you to each corner of the capital, you’ll find multiple side quests that are multi-part branching path adventures in themselves. There’s a bank break-in to dig up dodgy info on one of the game’s main mega-corps, and an investigation into an underground cult – finding every possible side story is a completionist dream, and the game makes pursuing these optional plots worthwhile with some great moments that rival the main story.
There are a couple of mainline departures from the Czech capital; an infiltration into Golem City – a cramped, higgledy-piggledy ghetto for the augmented that is by far the game’s most interesting setting – as well as a recon mission to a facility in the Swiss Alps and a rescue mission in London. Despite these four locations, each far larger than anything in any Deus Ex previously, Mankind Divided doesn’t feel half the grandiose globe-trotter that Human Revolution was. In some ways, this works in the game’s favour, grounding itself to focus its story. In others, it results in a game that’s half-baked, especially after proceedings aren’t so much cut short as they are forcefully cauterised, resulting in the most telegraphed setup for a sequel since 2004’s Halo 2.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Despite an improved control scheme, combat is still the least enjoyable way to play. Photograph: The Guardian
But, despite its terrible non-ending and the uninspiring boss fight that triggers it, the game still frequently finds immense strength in its moment-to-moment play. Mankind Divided retains the series’ mechanical tri-force of stealth, hacking and combat, but it does a much better job of blending these different styles – even if you want to play stealthily, for example, you’ll benefit from investing upgrade points into combat and hacking abilities to benefit from different routes that these styles allow.
After setting up a narrative hard-reset of Adam’s abilities, the resulting blank slate lets you experiment with the huge variety of augments and weapons. There’s an invisibility cloak, smart vision for seeing through walls, a set of rebreather lungs for gas immunity, a social enhancer to open up more conversational options at certain points in the game, and lethal and non-lethal weapons aplenty. There are also new “overclock” augments, too, which Jensen uncovers when he undergoes surgery at the beginning of the game, including a gauss wrist attachment that sends enemies flying, a long-range taser, and a remote hacking tool that’s incredibly useful when you’re in a sticky spot. Coupled with your existing playthings, these eight over-clocked augments elevate Mankind Divided’s depth beyond the strong foundations that Human Revolution laid out.
This leads to a more fluid role-playing experience, but one which suffers from many of the same pitfalls as its predecessor. Despite an improved control scheme, combat is still the least enjoyable way to play, and shooting just isn’t as satisfying as it needs to be to become your primary choice. Similarly, hacking is still really empowering, allowing you to turn the tide by sabotaging turrets, controlling cameras remotely and manipulating walker robots to turn on your enemies, but the mini-game with which you hack terminals and computers isn’t fun enough to justify how often you’ll be doing it.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The multitude of options at almost every other stage of the game apart from the ending is impressive. Photograph: The Guardian
Regardless of this, the open-ended nature of almost all missions means that you’re rarely punished for whichever way you want to play – you will find that in moments where you have to hack something, for example, it won’t require any upgrades to get past cybersecurity – and this makes for a game that begs to be played, manipulated and re-explored on several occasions, even despite its uneven core mechanics (something that the game’s New Game Plus encourages, too). It’s a disappointment that the game’s biggest moments don’t seem to have the multitude of outcomes that some of its smaller missions do; its grand finale seems to be the same no matter what your endgame decisions might be, but the multitude of options at almost every other stage of the game is impressive.
As a completely separate component from the main story, Breach mode adds time-trial style challenges. It’s by no means a worthy replacement of, you know, the end of the story, but Breach has some cool ideas, online leaderboards and exclusive augmentations that aren’t featured in the main game.
It’s a shame that in a world obsessed with the conflict between man and machine, Mankind Divided’s characters feel more robot than human. Hopefully, Eidos Montreal has strong post-release support planned to fill in the absent third act. Regardless of this, the game’s broad level of creative opportunities, memorable infiltrations and beautiful attention to detail in such a visually interesting world make for a game that’s fun to experiment with again and again, despite its structural cracks.
PS4, Xbox One and PC; Pegi 18. Sam reviewed the game on a PC
|
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/deus-ex-mankind-divided-review-eidos-montreal
|
en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0ff105d786cc41da425d53661c8757d3dfee4cf7dfc747742f136e8a9f25dfc9.json
|
|
[
"Greg Wood"
] | 2016-08-31T10:53:03 | null | 2016-08-31T10:22:18 |
John Quinn’s filly Al Shahaniya is Frankie Dettori’s only ride on the card at Lingfield – and looks like the best bet of the afternoon
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Ftalking-horses-wednesday-best-bets-tipping-competition-dettori.json
|
en
| null |
Talking Horses: Wednesday’s best bets plus our tipping competition
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Today’s best bets, by Greg Wood
Three of the original nine runners originally declared for the 3.10pm, the most interesting race of the day at Lingfield, have fallen by the wayside, but five of the remainder are priced in single figures. Even California Lad, the 14-1 outsider of the party, was a course and distance winner last time out – and has a pumped-up Silvestre de Sousa holding the reins.
Tony McCoy says he is unlikely to move to ITV in January Read more
De Sousa has five rides on the card while Jim Crowley, his main rival for the jockeys’ title, has four. Al Shahaniya (3.10), by contrast, is Frankie Dettori’s only ride on the card and looks like the best bet of the afternoon.
John Quinn’s filly has failed to register a subsequent win after being raised 3lb for a one-and-a-quarter length success at Carlisle in June, but she was beaten only a short-head at Brighton last time when stepping up to today’s trip for the first time. That was despite becoming unbalanced on the camber under an inexperienced jockey and, on a more straightforward track, with Dettori back in her saddle for the first time in seven outings, Al Shahaniya stands every chance of extending her trainer’s excellent run of form.
Katrine (3.40) should also go well in the nursery on the same card. She finished last when Mark Johnston stepped her up to Group Two company in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot after a successful debut at Ripon in May and then last in her next two starts as well. She returned to form after moving to join William Knight’s stable, however, finishing a half-length second at Brighton nine days ago. That gives her something to build on, racing from the same mark today.
Relight My Fire (6.50) may have a better chance than the betting suggests against the warm favourite Glengarry at Carlisle this evening, while Zaakhir (3.30) and Tamujin (4.00) will go well at Bath.
Tipping competition, day two
Our winners so far: Tuesday: Highland Acclaim 6-1; Paco’s Angel 8-1; Lincoln Rocks 9-2
And our leader is: wiggy12 +13 ... who had Highland Acclaim AND Paco’s Angel. He is chased by the three of you who had Highland Acclaim and Lincoln Rocks, who are on +9.50.
Today, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 4.30 Bath, 6.50 Carlisle, 7.10 Newton Abbot.
This week’s prize, somewhat prematurely, is a copy of RFO’s Jumps Guide for the 2016-17 season, which will be posted to you on publication in October. A tremendously useful prep-guide for all jump racing fans, the annual promises interviews, horses to follow, analysis of last season and tips for forthcoming winter highlights. If you don’t win you can buy a copy here.
As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers. If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today but you will start on -3.
In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.
For terms and conditions click here. Good luck!
And post your tips or racing-related comments below.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/31/talking-horses-wednesday-best-bets-tipping-competition-dettori
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/607596e93f78909bb7db51651c03943a90426a26db412cd1ae66f3e2626634e0.json
|
|
[
"Jamie Grierson"
] | 2016-08-29T22:50:02 | null | 2016-07-15T14:00:25 |
James Warnock, now 56, has been found guilty of brutal killing of 17-year-old Yiannoulla Yianni at her home on 13 August 1982
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Fjul%2F15%2Flondon-tiler-convicted-of-and-of-teenager-34-years-ago.json
|
en
| null |
London tiler convicted of rape and murder of teenager 34 years ago
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A former tiler has been convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl nearly 34 years ago after spending half a lifetime working and living in the same borough of London in which he committed the crime.
James Warnock, now 56, was found guilty by jury at the Old Bailey on Thursday of raping and strangling 17-year-old Yiannoulla Yianni, known to her family as Lucy, when she was home alone in Hampstead on the afternoon of 13 August 1982. Her family broke down in tears as the jury took just over two hours to find Warnock guilty.
Warnock, who went on to have two children with his wife after the murder, was arrested in December last year on suspicion of making indecent images of children at his home in Harrington Street, two miles from where he took Lucy’s life.
Detectives took a routine swab test from Warnock upon his arrest and a week later the results returned a match on the national DNA database with samples taken from Lucy’s body and the crime scene nearly 34 years ago.
The verdict could not be reported until Warnock entered guilty pleas to six charges of making indecent images of children between 2013 and 2015.
“We were really beginning to think the perpetrator was either dead or it was such a long time past that he had to be abroad or we might never find them,” said DI Julie Willats, who took on the case in 2013. “It was the science that has solved this one.”
Lucy, who was also known by schoolmates as Noodles, was waiting for O-level exam results from Quintin Kynaston school in St John’s Wood and was considering a career as a beautician or in banking.
The former Woolworths shop assistant enjoyed reading, watching television, styling her hair with an old-fashioned dryer, and taking Greek dancing classes.
On the day of the attack, Lucy had been with her parents Elli and George Yianni at their shoe repair shop minutes from their home. Lucy’s mother had sent her ahead to start preparing a leg of lamb for supper, planning to join her soon after.
At around 2pm, a man in his early 20s was spotted chatting with Lucy on her doorstep and 20 minutes later, a neighbour heard a scream.
When the parents arrived home half an hour later, they found Lucy’s jewellery scattered on the stairs, and they called out to her but were met with silence. Upstairs, in their bedroom, they were confronted with a horrific scene: they found Lucy on their bed, half naked and dead.
Despite a high-profile police appeal, which included a reconstruction by Maria, Lucy’s sister, the crime was never solved.
Warnock, who had married Lynne Abrahams a year before the murder, lived in Taplow Tower in Adelaide Road at the time – a short walk from Lucy’s home. He moved away a short while after to start a family with Abrahams, whom he went on to divorce in 2003.
Yiannoulla’s heartbroken father died in 1988 without ever seeing justice for his daughter. Her mother, however, is now 86 and despite ill health gave evidence during Warnock’s trial.
“Her father died a few years later, he never really got over it,” Willats said. “While he was alive he even wrote to the prime minister and the commissioner at Scotland Yard begging that the investigation is never closed and it never has.”
Witnesses at the time described the man on Lucy’s doorstep as being in his early 20s and possibly “Mediterranean-looking”. Artists impressions and e-fits were created, which officers now believe presented an accurate likeness of Warnock.
More than 1,000 witness statements were taken in the case which has been periodically reviewed. A small number of arrests were made but were based on routine elimination rather than meaningful leads.
When Willats took on the role, faced with an absence of CCTV or mobile phone records, tools to which modern policing has become accustomed, she adopted “old-fashioned” detective techniques.
Following up on an old tip that a mysterious character dubbed “Tony the Barber” had murdered Lucy, Willats searched old copies of the Yellow Pages in the British Library and even trawled through an archived episode of comedy-drama Minder to case out key locations.
When the match came back from the DNA database, Willats initially met the breakthrough with disbelief. “I got a text when I was at the theatre in January this year,” she said. “I was sitting there with my mum and I couldn’t wait for the interval, it was a really good show but I just wanted to get outside. I was thinking this can’t be right, it must be a mistake.”
In a police interview, Warnock admitted he knew Lucy, having first noticed her when he took a pair of boots to be repaired at her father’s shop.
Warnock claimed they would go for walks, sit on park benches and over time their relationship became more intimate, telling the court in front of Lucy’s disbelieving family he had sex with her on about 10 occasions.
Asked what he looked like in 1982, the defendant told police: “How can I put it? Er John Travolta?”
He claimed he had never seen any coverage of Lucy’s death because he did not read newspapers or watch the television.
But medical evidence revealed Lucy had been a virgin when she was raped.
“The story he creates is unbelievable,” Willats said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/15/london-tiler-convicted-of-and-of-teenager-34-years-ago
|
en
| 2016-07-15T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2aa3d917101d3c7325624a7990fa0f873bcba0fae11bdf247f73babd9dd0a57b.json
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.